nine o'clock
`` Now do as I tell you . Find when he returns . Capture him , bind , gag , and carry him to your meeting-place under the cliff , and let me know . '' On the afternoon of the funeral , two days later , Ben received a cypher telegram from the conductor on the train telling him that Gus was on the evening mail due at Piedmont at nine o'clock . The papers had been filled with accounts of the accident , and an enormous crowd from the county and many admirers of the fiery lyrics of the poet father had come from distant parts to honour his name . All business was suspended , and the entire white population of the village followed the bodies to their last resting-place . As the crowds returned to their homes , no notice was taken of a dozen men on horseback who rode out of town by different ways about dusk .