nine
o'clock
He was full of his characteristic reveries and abstractions that afternoon ; falling into them even at his wood-pile , leaning on his axe -- so still that an emerald-throated lizard , who had slid upon the log , went to sleep under the forgotten stroke . But at nightfall the wind arose , -- at first as a distant murmur along the hillside , that died away before it reached the rocky ledge ; then it rocked the tops of the tall redwoods behind the mill , but left the mill and the dried leaves that lay in the river-bed undisturbed . Then the murmur was prolonged , until it became the continuous trouble of some far-off sea , and at last the wind possessed the ledge itself ; driving the smoke down the stumpy chimney of the mill , rattling the sun-warped shingles on the roof , stirring the inside rafters with cool breaths , and singing over the rough projections of the outside eaves . At nine o'clock he rolled himself up in his blankets before the fire , as was his wont , and fell asleep . It was past midnight when he was awakened by the familiar clatter of boulders down the grade , the usual simulation of a wild rush from without that encompassed the whole mill , even to that heavy impact against the door , which he had heard once before . In this he recognized merely the ordinary phenomena of his experience , and only turned over to sleep again . But this time the door rudely fell in upon him , and a figure strode over his prostrate body , with a gun leveled at his head .