about ten o'clock
`` This country draws , and holds what it gets , '' he said . `` I 'm satisfied to stop here , as long as I 'm young . '' For a time they smoked in silence , and presently went to bed , tired with exhausting labor and glad to rest in dreamless sleep until they began again in the bitter dawn . The Dufferin House was the best hotel in the small Ontario town , and about ten o'clock one evening Stormont read a newspaper in his comfortable room . His clerk had been some days in the town , looking into a proposed transaction in real estate , and Stormont left Winnipeg when a letter from him arrived . This was not because the business required his supervision , but because Watson , the clerk , had found out something that might prove to be important , although it might lead to his employer 's wasting his time . Stormont seldom let what he called a fighting change go by .