noon
It would carry them beyond a great swampy region to the westward through which it would be impossible for them to make their way at this season of the year . Otherwise he would have gone ashore now . He loved the river , had faith in it , but he knew that not until the deep forests swallowed them , as a vast ocean swallows a ship , would they be beyond the peril that threatened them from the Landing . Three or four times between sunrise and noon they saw life ashore and on the stream ; once a scow tied to a tree , then an Indian camp , and twice trappers ' shacks built in the edge of little clearings . With the beginning of afternoon Kent felt growing within him something that was not altogether eagerness . It was , at times , a disturbing emotion , a foreshadowing of evil , a warning for him to be on his guard . He used the sweep more , to help their progress in the current , and he began to measure time and distance with painstaking care .