midnight
`` A love -- lee time to go to work , '' he growled , good-naturedly . `` Here is where the early bird catches the tractor -- and the devil . '' When he came out of the door a few minutes later , buttoning his corduroy coat -- even in Imperial Valley , which knows no winter , one needs a coat on a March night -- Rogeen stood for a moment on the step and put up his long arms again to stretch some of the deep sleep from his muscles . He was not at all enthusiastic about odd jobs at midnight ; but in a moment his eyes fell on the slanting moonlight that shone mistily on the chinaberry tree in the _ patio _ ; the town on the American side was fast asleep ; the wind with the smell of sagebrush stirred a clump of bamboo . The desert night had him -- and when he rode away toward the Mexican line he had forgotten his gun and taken his fiddle . He passed through Mexicali , the Mexican town , where the saloons were still open and the lights over the Red Owl , the great gambling hall , winked with glittering sleeplessness ; and out upon the road by the irrigation canal , fringed with cottonwood and willows . He let the reins drop over the saddlehorn , and brought the fiddle round in front of him .