three o'clock
Truxton King and Mr. Hobbs were not long in disposing of their lunch . It was too cold for comfort in their draughty dining-room , and they were not invited to enter the inhospitable gates . In half an hour they were wending their way down the north side of the peak by gradually declining roads , headed for the much-talked-of home of the Witch in Ganlook Gap , some six miles from Edelweiss as the crow flies , but twice that distance over the tortuous bridle paths and post roads . It was three o'clock when they clattered down the stone road and up to the forbidding vale in which lurked , like an evil , guilty thing , the log-built home of that ancient female who made no secret of her practices in witchcraft . The hut stood back from the mountain road a hundred yards or more , at the head of a small , thicket-grown recess . A low , thatched roof protruded from the hill against which the hut was built . As a matter of fact , a thin chimney grew out of the earth itself , for all the world like a smoking tree stump .