noon
`` The snow has covered it completely . '' Although they lacked everything but meat , this breakfast in the spruce thicket was one of the happiest of the entire trip , and when the three hunters were done each had eaten of his partridge until only the bones were left . There was now little cause for fear , for it was still snowing and their enemies were twenty-five miles to the north of them . This fact did not deter the adventurers from securing an early start , however , and they traveled southward through the storm until noon , when they built a camp of spruce and made preparations to rest until the following day . `` We must be somewhere near the Kenogami trail , '' Wabi remarked to Mukoki . `` We may have passed it . '' `` No pass it , '' replied Mukoki .