midnight
Sometimes he won , however , and then he would crow over Pearce and Smith , and delight in telling them how cunningly he had played . Jim Cleve had his bed up under the bulge of bluff , in a sheltered nook . Kells had appeared to like this idea , for some reason relative to his scout system , which he did not explain . And Cleve was happy about it because this arrangement left him absolutely free to have his nightly rendezvous with Joan at her window , sometime between dark and midnight . Her bed was right under the window : if awake she could rest on her knees and look out ; and if she was asleep he could thrust a slender stick between the boards to awaken her . But the fact was that Joan lived for these stolen meetings , and unless he could not come until very late she waited wide-eyed and listening for him . Then , besides , as long as Kells was stirring in the cabin she spent her time spying upon him .