nearly eight o'clock
`` If Angel Gonzales is playing around this neighborhood , the sooner we get away the better , '' said Scott to Hard as the three men were left together . `` Come and cast your weather eye over the wagon . For a quiet part of the country , we seem to have struck a bad gait . '' It was nearly eight o'clock when they sat down to their dinner ; a dinner contrived with Oriental thrift from materials scorned by the marauders . `` Give a Chinaman a handful of rice and a few vegetables and he 'll make you a feast , so my husband used to say , '' remarked Mrs. Conrad . `` You simply ca n't starve them . '' `` Li wants to start right after dinner , '' said Scott .