noon
A patch of dreary-looking swamp was before him , covered with clumps of alder-bushes -- a true Slough of Despond . Dol Farrar knew none of the miseries of plunging through an alder-swamp , but he luckily recalled in time a warning from Cyrus that a slight wetting would render his moccasins useless . While he halted undecidedly on its brink , he pulled out his watch ; one glance at this , and another at the sky , which now lay open like a scroll above him , gave him a sickening shock . He had started from camp at noon ; now it was after five o'clock . Little more than another hour , and not twilight , but the blackness of a total eclipse , would reign in the forest . The blood rushed to his head , and his mouth grew feverish at the thought . As he licked his cracking lips , he caught a faint , tinkling , rumbling sound of falling water somewhere to the right .