About four in the afternoon
The crash of their hurried retreat rose like a blare of brass horns cutting discordantly into the piping of a flute . But it died as quickly as it had risen . Even the beasts bowed before the invisible altars of silence . About four in the afternoon Mike Breyette turned the nose of the canoe sharply into the bank . The level of the forest floor lifted ten feet above Thompson 's head so that he could see nothing beyond the earthy rim save the tops of trees . He kept his seat while Mike tied the bow to a birch trunk with a bit of rope . He knew that they expected to land him at his destination before evening fell .