noon
`` Thank you , sir , '' said Jason . A week later Jason led Pilgrim out of the freight car in which he had traveled from Washington to a railway station twenty-five miles from home . The river packets were not running and this was the nearest station to High Hill . It was noon and cold . Jason mounted and started south briskly and once more the Ohio valley opened up before him . It seemed to Jason that he was seeing the hills for absolutely the first time . And yet that could not be , for back with the first sight of the distant river came all his old boyish reverence for the headlands .