about midnight
`` We bedded them oxen down one night in a great open valley after an easy day 's drive . There was only five of us , four with the steers , an ' me , cook an ' horse-wrangler , we havin ' everything on four pack mules , which I drove with the remuda . `` That night Billy St. Joe asked me if I would n't take his guard for him , he bein ' about sick all day with nuralgy . So when I was called along about midnight to spoon them for two hours I jumps an ' was soon joggin ' around the bunch , which was all a-lyin ' down as decent as one could wish fer . ` Twere hard to keep awake , an ' I reckon I must ` a ' been a-noddin ' in the saddle , for , the first thing I knowed there was a snort an ' a cracklin ' of horns an ' hocks , an ' away went me steers like the very old divil himself was behind them . `` I pulled meself together , slapped old Shoestring down the hind leg with me quirt , an ' put spurs after them , hopin ' to turn them . Old Shoestring snorted an ' kept them sharp ears of his workin ' an ' looking ' back over his shoulder like , as if he was a-feered too .