eleven o'clock
An answering scream came from the ledge above his head . The artist threw more fuel upon his fire , and grimly walked his beat . In the cold , gray dawn of that Friday morning , he ate a few mouthfuls of his scanty store of food and , as soon as it was light , -- even while the canyon below was still in the gloom , -- started on his way . It was eleven o'clock when , almost exhausted , he reached what he knew must be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before . There was little or no vegetation upon that high , wind-swept point . The side toward the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals , was an abrupt cliff -- hundreds of feet of sheer , granite rock . From the rim of this precipice , the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the pines that grew about its base .