ten o'clock in the
morning
Before five o'clock the last planks were spiked home on the walls and bins in the northwest corner . A few hours ' work in the morning would bring the rest of the house to the same level , and then work could commence on the distributing floor and on the frame of the cupola . Before the middle of the afternoon he had started two teams of horses dragging the cupola timbers , which had been cut ready for framing , to the foot of the hoist . By ten o'clock in the morning , Bannon figured , the engine would be lifting timbers instead of bundles of cribbing . There was a chill wind , up there on the top of the elevator , coming across the flats out of the glowing sunset . But Bannon let his coat flap open , as he gave a hand now and then to help the men . He liked to feel the wind tugging at sleeves and cap , and he leaned against it , bare-throated and bare-handed -- bareheaded , too , he would have been had not a carpenter , rods away on the cribbing , put out a hand to catch his cap as it tried to whirl past on a gust .