midnight
And then one morning late in April -- one bright Sunday morning -- the wheel of the cistern was broken , and they found the old man cold in his bed with his face to the wall . John Barclay was on a horse riding to the railroad -- four hours away , before the town was up for late Sunday morning breakfast . That afternoon he went into Topeka on a special engine , and told a Topeka banker who dealt with the bank of Sycamore Ridge the news of the general 's death , and asked for five thousand dollars in silver to allay a possible run . At midnight he drove into the Ridge with the money , and the bank opened in the morning at seven o'clock instead of nine , so that a crowd might not gather , and depositors who came , saw back of Barclay a great heap of silver dollars , flanked by all the gold and greenbacks in the vault , and when a man asked for his money he got it in silver , and when Oscar Fernald presented a check for over three thousand dollars , Barclay paid it out in silver , and in the spirit of fun , Sheriff Jake Dolan , who heard of the counting and recounting of the money while it was going on , brought in a wheelbarrow and Oscar wheeled his money to his hotel , while every loafer in town followed him . At noon Fernald came back with his money , and Barclay refused to take it . The town knew that also . Barclay did not step out of the teller 's cage during the whole day , but Lige Bemis was his herald , and through him Barclay had Dolan refuse to give Fernald protection for his money unless Fernald would consent to be locked up in jail with it .