eight o'clock
Bob believed his warning to Jenkins had stopped all further molestation , but he was not willing to take any chances -- at least not with Imogene Chandler . Bob had been irrigating all day and was dead tired . After supper he sat in front of his shack as usual to cool a little before turning in . The day had been the hottest of the summer , and now at eight o'clock it was still much over a hundred . In that heat there is little life astir even in the most luxuriant fields . It was still to-night -- scarcely the croak of a frog or the note of a bird . There was no moon , but in the deep , vast , clear spaces of the sky the stars burned like torches held down from the heavens .