eleven o’clock
`` There is nothing he would not dare , '' thought the boy . `` He is the freest , the boldest , the bravest man in town . '' When the young Irishman , seeing the admiration in his eyes , flung him a silver dollar saying , `` That is for your fine brown eyes , my boy ; it I had them I would have half the women in town after me , '' Sam kept the dollar in his pocket and counted it a kind of treasure like the rose given a lover by his sweetheart . * * * * * It was past eleven o'clock when Hop Higgins returned to town with McCarthy , driving quietly along the street and through an alley at the back of the town hall . The crowd upon the street had broken up . Sam had gone from one to another of the muttering groups , his heart quaking with fear . Now he stood at the back of the mass of men gathered at the jail door .