Eleven o'clock
Over in the bunkhouse disturbing sounds welled now and then into the cold , still night , -- incoherent snatches of song , voices uproariously raised , bursts of laughter . Once , as she looked out the door , thinking she heard footsteps crunching in the snow , some one rapped out a coarse oath that drove her back with burning face . As the evening wore late , she began to grow uneasily curious to know in what manner Charlie and Jack Fyfe were lending countenance to this minor riot , if they were even participating in it . Eleven o'clock passed , and still there rose in the bunkhouse that unabated hum of voices . Suddenly there rose a brief clamor . In the dead silence that followed , she heard a thud and the clinking smash of breaking glass , a panted oath , sounds of struggle . Stella slipped on a pair of her brother 's gum boots and an overcoat , and ran out on the path beaten from their cabin to the shore .