about three o'clock in the morning
Hours never passed more slowly . Colonel Kenton had gone back toward the Northern lines , and the boy surmised that he would be one of the first in the attack at dawn . He began to wonder if dawn would ever really come . Stars and a fair moon were out , and as nearly as he could judge from them it must be about three o'clock in the morning . Yet it seemed to him that he had been lying there at least twelve hours . He shut his eyes again , but sleep was as far from him as ever . After another long and almost unendurable period he opened them once more , and it seemed to him that there was a faint tint of gray in the east .