midnight
`` You see we 're in that part of the Rockies where there 's real mount ` ins , an ' the ranges ai n't broke up much . We 've got fairly good travel to the end . '' On this night Aldous slept from eight until twelve . The next , their fifth , his watch was from midnight until morning . As the sixth and the seventh days and nights passed uneventfully the belief that there were no enemies behind them became a certainty . Yet neither Aldous nor MacDonald relaxed their vigilance . The eighth day dawned , and now a new excitement took possession of Donald MacDonald .