about ten o'clock
`` Bread and cheese ! '' groaned the Professor , as he thrashed about in the scrub . `` That Living Skeleton 'll be as fat as a pig . '' At about ten o'clock that night Dan Reynolds , riding from One Tree Hill to ` Tween Bridges , and thinking of Annie , the Cockie 's daughter , whom he had left at the slip-rails , was amazed at a terrible apparition that arose before him on the moon-lit road . It was a strange , shaggy creature , half monkey half-man , covered from the top of his head to the knees in thick , crisp , tufted hair . Dan 's horse snorted and , came back on his haunches , remaining so for an appreciable space of time , sitting up , glaring at the curious monster with dilated eyes and inflated nostrils , and Dan clung to the nag 's neck and glared too , even more astonished than his horse . Never had Dan Reynolds beheld such an animal , never had he heard of its like , the horror of it out did all the fabled bunyips and Tantanoola tigers he had ever dreamed of .