midnight
It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the ears of a lynx . He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards of them , which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small distance . At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the gap for which they had been making , and uttered the plaintive signal cry again , on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity . `` To-morrow at midnight , '' said the first who appeared to be in authority . `` When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times . '' `` It is well , '' returned the other . `` Shall I tell Brother Drebber ? ''