two o'clock in the
morning
The cashier stood rigid , still crouched , waiting for a repetition of the noise . It came once more -- the low , dull rasping of a file . Shivers ran down the spine of Milton and up the back of his head to the roots of his hair . Somebody was in the bank -- at two o'clock in the morning -- with tools for burglary . He was a scholarly old fellow , brought up in New England and cast out to the uttermost frontier by the malign tragedy of poverty . Adventure offered no appeal to him . His soul quaked as he waited with slack , feeble muscles upon the discovery that only a locked door stood between him and violent ruffians .