dusk falls at four in the afternoon
He lay with his feet stretched to the fire . For the time he almost ceased to think , relaxed as he was into a pleasant , animal well-being . And so presently he fell asleep . In winter , north of the forty-ninth parallel , and especially in those deep clefts like the Toba , dusk falls at four in the afternoon , and day has not grown to its full strength at nine in the morning . Hollister had finished his breakfast before the first gleam of light touched the east . When day let him see the Alpine crevasses that notched the northern wall of the valley , he buckled on a belt that carried a sheath-ax , took up his rifle and began first of all a cursory exploration of the flat on which he camped . It seemed to him that in some mysterious way he was beginning his life all over again , -- that life which his reason , with cold , inexorable logic , had classified as a hopeless ruin .