About midday
She began to tell semi-humorous tales of her own experiences about the ranch and on the ranges , and this started Tom and Frank to swapping tales -- some of them altogether too ridiculous to be wholly true . Only Hesitation Kane remained silent ; but that made him no different from usual . He even grinned cheerfully under the sallies of his companions . About midday the little cavalcade wound around a knob of a hill and arrived at the brink of a sheer bank , below which was a pocket in the hillside . Tom Collins had been guiding them for more than an hour , and now he announced this was the place . `` This here 's it , '' he said with confidence . `` I run that black outlaw right up into this here pocket and -- there he was n't ! ''