about noon
`` The best thing you could do , and I 'll take a turn between the blankets myself . '' Robert had a great sleep . Some of the rooms in the blockhouse offered a high degree of frontier comfort , and he lay down upon a soft couch of skins . A fine fire blazing upon a stone hearth dried his deerskin garments , and , when he awoke about noon , he was strong and thoroughly refreshed . The snow was still falling heavily . The wilderness in its white blanket was beautiful , but it did not look like a possible home to Robert now . His vivid imagination leaped up at once and pictured the difficulties of any one struggling for life , even in that vast white silence .