four o'clock in the afternoon
At first they managed to carry her on their shoulders , wading in the bog , but afterward she must be dragged through or over innumerable tangles of small fallen trunks and networks of rotten branches that had to be laboriously smashed . It was heroic labor -- sometimes they spent an hour making sixty yards -- and Lisle 's face grew anxious as well as determined . Game had been very scarce ; the deer would not last them long ; and disastrous results might follow a continuance of their present slow progress . When , utterly worn out , they made camp on slightly firmer ground toward four o'clock in the afternoon , Lisle strode off heavily toward the bordering hills , while Jake pushed on to prospect ahead . Nasmyth , who was quite unable to accompany either , prepared the supper and awaited their reports with some anxiety . Lisle came back first and shook his head when Nasmyth asked if he had found a better route on higher ground . `` Not a slope we could haul along , '' he reported .