nine o'clock in the evening
The weather grew quite warm , and in the state-rooms the boys found that the thermometer stood at ninety degrees . With one stop for wood at a yard where the natives had piled up enormous quantities of cordwood , the boat tied up after making perhaps sixty miles . On the following day she continued her steady progress down-stream between the green-lined shores . The banks of the river now grew lower and lower , and by nine o'clock in the evening , at which time it still was light , there began to show the marshes of the Peace River Delta , one of the most important deltas in all the world . The boat ran on into the night , and before midnight had passed the mouths of the Quatre Fourches , or Four Forks , which make the mouth of the Peace River . The boys wondered at the great marshes which now they saw , and Uncle Dick explained to them that here was one of the greatest wild-fowl breeding-grounds in all the world . `` If there were any way in the world for sportsmen to get up here , '' said he , `` this country would soon be famous , for it certainly is a wilderness .