midnight
`` We 'll need another hand to help us , '' said Dextry . `` Who can we get ? '' At that moment , as though in answer , the door opened with the scant ceremony that friends of the frontier are wont to observe , admitting the attenuated , flapping , dome-crowned figure of Slapjack Simms , and Dextry fell upon him with the hunger of a wolf . It was midnight and over the dark walls of the valley peered a multitude of stars , while away on the southern horizon there glowed a subdued effulgence as though from hidden fires beneath the Gold God 's caldron , or as though the phosphorescence of Bering had spread upward into the skies . Although each night grew longer , it was not yet necessary to light the men at work in the cuts . There were perhaps two hours in which it was difficult to see at a distance , but the dawn came early , hence no provision had been made for torches . Five minutes before the hour the night-shift boss lowered the gates in the dam , and , as the rush from the sluices subsided , his men quit work and climbed the bluff to the mess tent .