nine o'clock
There was a craning of masked heads , ... a period of grunting approval , ... and then faintly from below came a whirring , a sputtering and a high , cracked voice of announcement . The White Chief 's face wore its sardonic smile as the gravel was being shoveled into the grave for the little tin phonograph was bravely playing : _ There 'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight _ . Evening found the Boreland family , attended by Kayak Bill , taking the beach trail to the Village . It was well past nine o'clock and the twilight had merged into the soft , luminous duskiness that would continue until the sun came up at two-thirty in the morning . In the gloom a hundred blanket-covered canoes lined the crescent beach that sloped gently upward to a strip of gravel before the row of Indian houses . The totems of the Thunder-bird and the Bear stood out high against the sky . Before the Potlatch-house an Indian dog , small , coyote-like , yelped shrilly as he tugged at the rope which fastened him to a stake .