twelve o’clock
By a little management I secured the next room to his , by which arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night , Mr. Blake spending most of the wee sma ' hours in pacing the floor of his room , with an unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect upon my nerves . Early the next morning we took the stage , he sitting on the back seat , and I in front with the driver . There were other passengers , but I noticed he never spoke to any of them , nor through all the long drive did he once look up from the corner where he had ensconced himself . It was twelve o'clock when we reached the end of the route , a small town of somewhat less than the usual pretensions of mountain villages ; so insignificant indeed , that I found it more and more difficult to imagine what the wealthy ex-Congressman could find in such a spot as this , to make amends for a journey of such length and discomfort ; when to my increasing wonder I heard him give orders for a horse to be saddled and brought round to the inn door directly after dinner . This was a move I had not expected and it threw me a little aback , for although I had thus far managed to hold myself so aloof from Mr. Blake , even while keeping him under my eye , that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had as yet been awakened , how could I thus for the third time follow his order with one precisely similar , without attracting an attention that would be fatal to my plans . Yet to let him ride off alone now , would be to drop the trail at the very moment the scent became of importance . The landlord , a bustling , wiry little man all nervousness and questions , unwittingly helped me at this crisis .