ten o'clock
Bob asked . Reedy might already be rushing his cotton on those trucks down to the waiting boat on the Gulf , and by going this route they would intercept them . The road over the mountains was not completed , said the secretary , but they could have another machine from the valley to meet them , and in that machine make the circuit as proposed . At ten o'clock that night Rogeen , the captain , and the secretary left the machine and the chauffeur at the top of the mountain grade , and began the two-mile descent to the ancient bed of the sea -- the desert round the Laguna Salada . Bob 's satisfaction at winning the governor was more than overbalanced by the torturing fear that it would all be too late . He believed they would be in time to stop Reedy from getting away with his four hundred thousand dollars ' worth of cotton . Jenkins would not start until he had lost hope of getting that $ 150,000 from the ranchers for water .