seven o'clock
`` This poor devil 's battered into pulp and I ca n't leave him . '' And again he was by Graham 's side -- Graham who , kneeling now and sponging with cold water the bruised , hacked , disfigured face of the senseless victim , had made a startling discovery . Here , with his clothing ripped , torn , and covered with dirt and blood , with one arm obviously broken and his head beaten , kicked , and cruelly gashed -- here , beyond a doubt , lay the man who nearly five years earlier had been the one obstacle between him and the goal of his ambition , the cadetship at West Point ; here lay the son of the man probably most prominent in the conspiracy against the absent shareholders of Silver Shield ; here , in fine , lay the almost lifeless body of the youth he had seen spying upon their arrival at Denver -- young Breifogle himself . By this time the Mogul was grinding her way up the track , in determined effort to land the Time Freight in the yards at Argenta before the whistle blew for seven o'clock . It was a twelve-mile pull up-grade , every inch of the way -- twisting , turning , and tunnelling , as has been said -- and the caboose reeled and swayed from side to side as it rounded the reverse curves and swung at the tail of the train . Cullin , lantern in hand , had climbed to his seat in the lookout . `` I 've got to be up here , '' he explained , `` till we are through the tunnels .