three o'clock
They rode along until they reached the last path which turns off to the river . At the end of that path , a mile away through the underbrush , Paul and Jacques Le Page were stationed with a boat . The young men with Gabriel dismounted and led their horses into the thicket to wait for his signal . The birds had begun to sing just after three o'clock that clear morning , for Celeste lying awake heard them ; and they were keeping it up in the bushes . Gabriel leaned his feathered head over the road , listening for hoof-falls and watching for the first puff of dust in the direction of Prairie du Pont . The road was not as well trodden as it is now , and a little ridge of weeds grew along the centre , high enough to rake the stirrup of a horseman . But in the distance , instead of the pat-a-pat of iron hoofs began a sudden uproar of cries and wild whoops .