nearly midnight
I got over the plain with tolerable ease , for the sun had at times melted the snow , which when it froze again had become hard and rough . As I ran on , however , I was trying to devise some plan by which the Indians might be turned off my track . To obliterate it , however , was hopeless , unless a heavy fall of snow should come on , and even then the cunning rascals , by scraping away the snow at intervals , were very likely to find me out . It was nearly midnight , I calculated , when I felt that I must stop to rest and take some food . I sat down on what I took to be a mound of earth covered with snow . I ate a handful of rice and a little biscuit , and chewed a piece of wolf 's flesh , and felt somewhat revived . I should have liked to have gone to sleep , but I dared not , even for a moment .