two
o'clock
Once she bucked , but it was from force of habit ; once she shied , but it was from a new freshly painted meeting-house at the crossing of the county road . Hollows , ditches , gravelly deposits , patches of freshly springing grasses , flew from beneath her rattling hoofs . She began to smell unpleasantly , once or twice she coughed slightly , but there was no abatement of her strength or speed . By two o'clock he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to the plain . Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer coach was overtaken and passed by a `` man on a Pinto hoss , '' -- an event sufficiently notable for remark . At half past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout . Stars were glittering through the rifted clouds , and beyond him , out of the plain , rose two spires , a flagstaff , and a straggling line of black objects .