four o'clock
I had left the depot in a snow-storm ; I reached the roundhouse in a blizzard . `` There was no time to wait to get back to the keys . I telephoned orders over from the house , and the boys burned the wires , east and west , with warnings . When the wind went into the north that day at four o'clock , it was murder pure and simple , with the snow sweeping the flat like a shroud and the thermometer water-logged at zero . `` All night it blew , with never a minute 's let-up . By ten o'clock half our wires were down , trains were failing all over the division , and before midnight every plough on the line was bucking snow -- and the snow was coming harder . We had given up all idea of moving freight , and were centring everything on the passenger trains , when a message came from Beverly that the fast mail was off track in the cut below the hill , and I ordered out the wrecking gang and a plough battery for the run down .