about noon
`` How could they know I was here ? '' I asked . `` It was your old Susan who first thought of it . She saw you walking toward the shaft about noon , and then she remembered that she had not seen you again ; and when they came into the tunnel here they found one of the lanterns gone and the big stick you generally carry lying where the lantern had been . Then it was known that you must be inside . Oh , then there was an awful time ! The foreman of the ice-men examined everything , and said they must dig down to you from above .