nine o'clock
Then a hundred miles by dog-sledge and he would be in the big wilderness camp where three hundred men were already at work clearing a way to the great bay to the north . What a glorious achievement that road would be ! It would remain for all time as a cenotaph to his ability , his courage and indomitable persistence . It was past nine o'clock when Howland entered the little old Windsor Hotel . The big room , through the windows of which he could look out on the street and across the frozen Saskatchewan , was almost empty . The clerk had locked his cigar-case and had gone to bed . In one corner , partly shrouded in gloom , sat a half-breed trapper who had come in that day from the Lac la Ronge country , and at his feet crouched one of his wolfish sledge-dogs .