noon
All the while the horses cropped , Garth strode ceaselessly up and down , biting his lips ; while the white-faced boy , who had not spoken all morning , sat holding his bursting head between his hands ; and Rina , crouching apart , gazed over the prairie with unseeing eyes . Garth had it ever in mind to save the horses , but his impatience was incontrollable ; he made them start too soon ; and throughout the afternoon he urged them more than he knew . The animals failed visibly , hour by hour . It was more than three hours before they came upon the site of the noon camp of those ahead , showing that they were steadily losing in the chase . To be obliged to stop again two hours short of darkness was a crushing disappointment to Garth ; but the horses could go no farther . He could never have told how he curbed his impatience throughout that age-long night . He did not sleep : but an excess of suffering is in the end its own merciful opiate ; and he was not always fully conscious .