two o'clock
Davies read official matter in the captain 's manner as he approached the section , and rising , stood attention , cadet-like , when addressed . `` Mr. Davies , while I think everything will go quietly with those fellows from this on , I wish to take all necessary precautions . I will divide the night with you . After two o'clock I wish you to go through the cars once every two hours and see that the recruits are quiet and the guard alert , also to step outside to the platform when we stop at stations . Better turn in now and get what sleep you can . '' But though promptly at two o'clock the young officer aroused the captain , who was dozing in the smoking-room , he himself had had little sleep . The events of the day , the novelty of his position , the desire to see something of the strange , half-settled land so recently the roaming-ground of Indian and buffalo through which they were steadily rolling , and which lay outspread , weird and ghostly , in the summer moonlight , -- these and thoughts of home and the rapidly nearing possibilities of frontier warfare , all combined to make him wakeful .