a few minutes before twelve o'clock
After crossing the ridge , the path led us through denser , darker woods . A large animal which Willis thought to be a bear , but Addison and Thomas deemed more likely to be a deer , was heard to run away through a copse of cedar , a little in advance of us . We passed some very large swamp elms here and several basswoods fully four feet in diameter . At length , a few minutes before twelve o'clock , by the old silver watch -LRB- which Kate had brought from home to keep time for us during the trip -RRB- we came out at the `` skedaddlers ' fort , '' where we had planned to stop for lunch and make a pot of coffee . This was the first time I had heard of this old structure , thus singularly named . But Willis , Thomas and Kate knew its history ; Addison and our girls had also heard accounts of it . It stood in the midst of a little opening -- now overgrown again -- made by felling the great bass , hemlock , and spruce trees , of which its log walls were built .