five o'clock in the
afternoon
`` No breakfast to-day , Tom . '' `` No , George , nor dinner , either , till we are out of the wood . '' These two poor fellows walked and ran and crept and struggled all day , sometimes hoping , sometimes desponding . At last , at five o'clock in the afternoon , their bellies gnawed with hunger , their clothes torn to rags , their skin bleeding , they came out upon some trees with the bark stripped . They gave one another a look that words can hardly paint . They were the trees they had barked twelve hours ago ! The men stood silent -- neither cared to tell the other all he felt -- for now there crept over these two stout bosoms a terrible chill , the sense of a danger new to them in experience , but not new in report .