about ten o'clock
`` But they are true as steel , and you can trust them with your life . I have bought wood of them for years and know them like a book . I will go ashore with you and give you a good send-off . We shall get there about ten o'clock to-night . '' Rodney opened his lips to thank the captain for his kindness , but he was gone . The old steamboat-man sympathized with the South , and Captain Howard and his friends had found it out , and induced him to do what he could to help Rodney escape the expectant Yankee cotton-factor at St. Louis . The boy laughed aloud when he thought how astonished and angry Tom Randolph would be to learn that he had wasted time and telegrams to no purpose .