three o'clock
He stopped at a cottage nestled in a grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to wrap him a lunch to take with him up the trail . The good woman had packed many a lunch for her husband , who was a guide -LRB- and a close friend of the man who was cooling his heels at the hotel entrance -RRB- , and she knew just what a person wanted who was going to climb Kettle Mountain . Three hours after , John Westley , very tired from his climb but not in the least repentant of his disobedience , enjoyed immensely a long rest with Mother Tilly 's good things spread out on a rock at his elbow . At three o'clock John Westley realized that the trail he had chosen was not taking him back to the village ; at four he admitted he was lost . All his boyish exhilaration had quite left him ; he would have hugged his despised guide if he could have met him around one of the many turns of the trail ; he ached in every bone and could not get the thought out of his head that a man could die on Kettle Mountain and no one would know it for months ! He chose the trails that went _ down _ simply because his weary legs could not _ climb _ one foot more ! And he had gone down such steep inclines that he was positive he had descended twice the height of the mountain and must surely come into some valley or other -- then suddenly his foot slipped on the needles that cushioned the trail , he fell , just as one does on the ice -- only much more softly -- and slid on , down and down , deftly steering himself around a bend , and came to a stop against a dead log just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps , neatly built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led to a grassy terrace , open on one side to the wide sweep of valley and surrounding mountains and closed in on the other by leaning , whispering birches .