two o'clock
He was climbing down the twenty-five-foot rope landing ladder with only his own strong grip and the spruce rungs to save him from death . There was nothing to be said or done . Bob did not know what was going on below , but he knew that he had a task set for him , and in the long silence that followed while the Cibola settled lower and lower and drifted on and on in the dark he stood , knife in hand , at the ballast bags . Buck , the guide , and Elmer Grissom had reached their appointed rendezvous at two o'clock that afternoon . The hot journey had been tedious and uneventful . Only at the half-breed settlement twenty miles north of Clarkeville had they seen a human being . Therefore , after they had been in camp about an hour , even the vigilant , experienced Buck was startled to observe suddenly a solitary Indian -- his horse as statuesque as himself -- watching them from a knoll some two hundred yards distant .