six o'clock in the evening
He waited expectantly for a moment , as if inviting a confidence ; then , observing that the younger man was flushed , and not looking at him , grinned knowingly , and trudged out of the office , calling back as he went : `` There 'll be sump water in the creek in half an hour . '' As if imbued with new energy , he ordered one of the idle millmen to act as stoker , if he cared to do so , which was cheerfully done , had the extra pump attached , saw the fire roaring from another boiler , and by noon the shaft rang with the steady throb of the pistons pounding and pulling the waste water upward . The last of the unwatering of the Cross was going forward in haste . By six o'clock in the evening he reported that soundings showed that the map had not been checked up , and that the shaft was seven hundred and ten feet deep , and that they would commence a drift on the seven-hundred-foot mark the next day . Dick was awakened at an early hour , and found Bill missing . He went over to the hoist house , where a sleepy night man , new to the hours , grinned at him with a pleasant : `` Looks like we 're busy , just -- the -- same , Mr. Townsend ! The old man '' -- the superintendent of a mine is always `` the old man , '' be he but twenty -- `` left orders last night that when the water was clear at seven hundred feet he was to be called .