six in the morning
But on the following day , after breakfast at North Platte , Nebraska , she wrote a very long letter indeed , and told them that she had seen a black pig on a white pile of buffalo bones , catching drops of water in the air as they fell from the railroad tank . She also wrote that trees were extraordinarily scarce . Each hour westward from the pig confirmed this opinion , and when she left the train at Rock Creek , late upon that fourth night , -- in those days the trains were slower , -- she knew that she had really attained the unknown , and sent an expensive telegram to say that she was quite well . At six in the morning the stage drove away into the sage-brush , with her as its only passenger ; and by sundown she had passed through some of the primitive perils of the world . The second team , virgin to harness , and displeased with this novelty , tried to take it off , and went down to the bottom of a gully on its eight hind legs , while Miss Wood sat mute and unflinching beside the driver . Therefore he , when it was over , and they on the proper road again , invited her earnestly to be his wife during many of the next fifteen miles , and told her of his snug cabin and his horses and his mine . Then she got down and rode inside , Independence and Grandmother Stark shining in her eye .