noon
Then , leaving the skeleton to the wind and the sky and the countless ages , they turned and went on their way west . It took them till dusk to reach the foot of the western rise of ground ; here they slept under a rock , continuing their way next morning , climbing till they reached the summit of the rise and keeping their course along the edge of a cliff that fell a sheer three hundred feet to the shore below . Sometimes Raft peeped over the cliff edge and once the girl drew close and looked , too , dizzy with the height , made more dreadful by the gulls flying far below . At noon , far ahead of them , they saw something that made them pause ; a little mound . As they drew closer they knew . It was another cache , a cache made of heaped earth and loose stones with about a foot of sign post protruding from it . The post had been broken off in some storm and blown away .