midnight
Twilight deepened into darkness . One by one the stars appeared ; then the crescent moon rose over the wooded hill in the west , and the hunter never moved . With his head leaning against the log he sat quiet and patient . At midnight he whispered to the dog , and crawling from his hiding place glided stealthily up the stream . Far ahead from the dark depths of the forest peeped the flickering light of a camp-fire . Wetzel consumed a half hour in approaching within one hundred feet of this light . Then he got down on his hands and knees and crawled behind a tree on top of the little ridge which had obstructed a view of the camp scene .