about three o'clock
Hopalong handed tobacco and papers down the hole . `` So long . '' `` So long , '' replied the daring Pete , who risked death twice for a smoke . The hot afternoon dragged along and about three o'clock Buck held up an empty cartridge belt to the gaze of the curious Hopalong . That observant worthy nodded and threw a double handful of cartridges , one by one , to the patient and unrelenting Buck , who filled his gun and piled the few remaining ones up at his side . `` Th ' lives of mice and men gang aft all wrong , '' he remarked at random . `` Th ' son-of-a-gun 's talkin ' Shakespeare , '' marveled Hopalong .