noon
I 'm sure we can get ready by then . '' `` Afternoon it is , if you say so ! But we 've got to work , to do it ! '' By noon they had gathered together all the freight they meant to carry , and -- though the sun had dimmed behind dull clouds of a peculiar slaty gray , that drifted in from eastward -- had prepared for the flight to Boston . After a plentiful dinner of venison , berries and breadfruit , they loaded the machine . Stern calculated that , with Beatrice as a passenger , he could carry seventy-five or eighty pounds of freight . The two rifles , ammunition , knives , ax , tools and provisions they packed into the skin sack Beatrice had prepared , weighed no more than sixty .