nearly midnight
Babe , who was on guard outside , refused to converse with him , and he finally lay down , only to toss restlessly upon the blankets . The night seemed unusually still and the stillness made him nervous ; even the sound of Babe 's back rubbing against the door when he shifted his position was company . Smith 's uneasiness was unlike him , and he wondered at it , while unable to conquer it . It must have been nearly midnight when , staring into the darkness with sleepless eyes , he felt , rather than heard , something move outside . It came from the rear , and Babe was at the door for only a moment before he had struck a match on a log to light a cigarette . The sound was so slight that only a trained ear like Smith 's would have detected it . It had sounded like the scraping of the leg of an overall against a sage-brush , and yet it was so trifling , so indistinct , that a field mouse might have made it .