midnight of Friday night
The old stakes , blazed and scrawled sixty days before by Cyrus Johnson , still stood , and every man had gone over the boundaries of the claim again and again , for the race with dogs was to be preceded by a foot and obstacle race . Each man had to re-locate the claim for himself , and this meant that he must place two centre-stakes and four corner-stakes and cross the creek twice , before he could start for Dawson with his dogs . Furthermore , there were to be no ` sooners . ' Not until the stroke of midnight of Friday night was the claim open for re-location , and not until the stroke of midnight could a man plant a stake . This was the ruling of the Gold Commissioner at Dawson , and Captain Consadine had sent up a squad of mounted police to enforce it . Discussion had arisen about the difference between sun-time and police-time , but Consadine had sent forth his fiat that police time went , and , further , that it was the watch of Lieutenant Pollock that went . The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed , and , less than two feet in width , was like a groove , walled on either side by the snow-fall of months .