midnight
The moon , round and full , never shone more brightly , and it seemed that countless new stars had arrived that very night . He sighed . They might as well have been riding in broad daylight . Toward midnight the swells and dips of the plain became accentuated , and they lost sight of the pursuing Lipans . But there was yet no forest to hide them , only the miserable mesquite and the ragged yucca . Save for them the plain stretched away as bare and brown as ever . Two hours more with the Lipans still lost to view , Obed called a halt .