eleven o'clock
His dogs first caught the noises of the camp , pricking their ears and whining in low eagerness . Then it came to the ears of the humans , a murmur , dim with distance , but not invested with the soothing grace that is common to distant murmurs . Instead , it was in a high , wild key , a beat of shrill sound broken by shriller sounds -- the long wolf-howling of many wolf-dogs , a screaming of unrest and pain , mournful with hopelessness and rebellion . Smoke swung back the crystal of his watch and by the feel of finger-tips on the naked hands made out eleven o'clock . The men about him quickened . The legs that had lifted through a dozen strenuous hours lifted in a still swifter pace that was half a run and mostly a running jog . Through a dark spruce-flat they burst upon an abrupt glare of light from many fires and upon an abrupt increase of sound .