about two o'clock in the morning
His dreamy state deepened , and with it the wilderness effect which the little valley , the high mountains around it and the raging winter made . His mind traveled far back once more and he easily imagined himself his great ancestor , Paul Cotter , sleeping in the woods with his comrades and hidden from Indian attack . While the feeling was still strong upon him he too fell asleep , and he did not awaken until it was time for him to take the watch with Pennington and Warner . It was then about two o'clock in the morning , and the snow had ceased to fall , but it lay deep in all places not sheltered , while the wind had heaped it up many feet in all the gorges and ravines of the mountains . Dick thought he had never beheld a more majestic world . All the clouds were gone and hosts of stars glittered in a sky of brilliant blue . On every side of them rose the lofty peaks and ridges , clothed in gleaming white , the forests themselves a vast , white tracery .