Three o'clock in the morning
Inside the first half-hour she was away some distance from the lights of Dawson , and nothing but great snowy stretches lay around her . That night up at the west gulch it happened that neither Stephen nor Talbot had gone to bed . There is little to choose between night and day there , since half of the day hours are dark as the blackest night , and a man can sleep in them as profitably or more so than in the moonlit hours of the night . Three o'clock in the morning had come , and the two men were still sitting talking on each side of the stove , with an opened whisky bottle on the table between them , in Stephen 's cabin , when the dull sound of a horse 's footfall broke the blank silence of the gulch . Both sprang to their feet on the instant , and Talbot drew his pistol from his belt and stood listening with it in his hand . `` I always said we ought n't to keep our gold up here , '' said Stephen , and his face whitened . Talbot held up his hand to enjoin silence , and they waited while the sound of hoofs moving slowly over the treacherous and uneven soil came nearer .