seven o'clock
At twelve o'clock , according to his orders , all the division superintendents put themselves in communication with him by means of the telephone wires that connected each of the division houses , reporting the condition of the work , the number of acres covered , the prospects of each plough traversing its daily average of twenty miles . At half-past twelve , Vanamee and the rest of the drivers ate their lunch in the field , the tin buckets having been distributed to them that morning after breakfast . But in the evening , the routine of the previous day was repeated , and Vanamee , unharnessing his team , riding one horse and leading the others , returned to the division barns and bunk-house . It was between six and seven o'clock . The half hundred men of the gang threw themselves upon the supper the Chinese cooks had set out in the shed of the eating-house , long as a bowling alley , unpainted , crude , the seats benches , the table covered with oil cloth . Overhead a half-dozen kerosene lamps flared and smoked . The table was taken as if by assault ; the clatter of iron knives upon the tin plates was as the reverberation of hail upon a metal roof .