midnight
And while they waited , the red grew dull and the dragon dingy , and its fury made its contortions the more horrible ; and that was all the difference between day and night in the land of the red silence . Sometimes the dragon split , and joints of it tried to turn back to the last water it had drunk ; for cattle , though blinded with thirst , never forget the last stream at which they have quenched thirst , and will turn back to it , though they drop on the way . But the men pressed them farther and farther , and for yet a little while the cattle yielded . At midnight the saddle-stock was incapable of moving farther . One horse had fallen and lay too weak to rise . The others , limping and foot-sore , no longer responded to quirt and rowel . The foreman ordered the herd thrown on the bed ground for the night .