about three in the morning
This was necessary , for he could not go any further in a costume that he now knew to be forbidden . At this hour no ranger was likely to meet him before he reached the statues , and by making a push for it he could return in time to cross the limits of the preserves before the Professors ' permit had expired . If challenged , he must brazen it out that he was one or other of the persons therein named . Fatigued though he was , he reached the statues as near as he could guess , at about three in the morning . What little wind there had been was warm , so that the tracks , which the Professors must have seen shortly after he had made them , had disappeared . The statues looked very weird in the moonlight but they were not chanting . While ascending , he pieced together the information he had picked up from the Professors .