about
noon
`` They say truly , '' replied the Professor , `` but they seem to me to stop short in their reasoning . They appear to ignore the fact that this elemental original force of which they speak must have had a Creator . However far they may go back into mysterious and incomprehensible elements , which they choose to call ` blind forces , ' they do not escape the fact that matter can not have created itself ; that behind their utmost conceptions there must still be One non-created , eternal , living Being who created all , who upholds all , and whom we call God . '' Descending again from the heights in order to cross a valley and gain the opposite mountain , our ramblers quitted the glacier , and , about noon , found themselves close to a lovely pine-clad knoll , the shaded slopes of which commanded an unusually fine view of rocky cliff and fringing wood , with a background of glacier and snow-flecked pinnacles . Halting , accidentally in a row , before this spot they looked at it with interest . Suddenly the Professor stepped in front of the others , and , pointing to the knoll , said , with twinkling eyes -- `` What does it suggest ? Come , dux -LRB- to Slingsby , who happened to stand at the head of the line -RRB- , tell me , sir , what does it suggest ? '' ''