Nine o'clock
The _ Tacoma _ arrived at Yokohama the next morning , the passengers were sent ashore , and the steamer herself was added as an auxiliary cruiser to the Japanese fleet . _ Chapter III _ Ding-ding-ding-ding -- Ding-ding-ding-ding -- went the bell of the railway telegraph -- Ding-ding-ding-ding -- Tom Gardner looked up from his work and leaned his ax against the wall of the low tin-roofed shanty which represented both his home and the station Swallowtown on the Oregon Railway . `` Nine o'clock already , '' he mumbled , and refilling his pipe from a greasy paper-bag , he lighted it and puffed out clouds of bluish smoke into the clear air of the hot May morning . Then he looked at the position of the sun and verified the fact that his nickel watch had stopped again . The shaky little house hung like a chance knot in an endless wire in the middle of the glittering double row of rails that stretched from east to west across the flowery prairie . It looked like a ridiculous freak in the midst of the wide desert , for nowhere , so far as the eye could reach , was it possible to discover a plausible excuse for the washed-out inscription `` Swallowtown '' on the old box-lid which was nailed up over the door .