nine o'clock
It was time to encamp for the night . Those long June nights in the far north with fire glowing in the track of a vanished sun and stillness brooding over infinite space -- have a glory , that is peculiarly their own . Only a sort of half-darkness lies between the lingering sunset and the early sun-dawn . At nine o'clock the sun-rim is still above the western prairie . At ten , one may read by daylight , and , if the sky is clear , forget for another hour that night has begun . After supper , Father Holland sat at a distance from the tents with his back carefully turned towards us , a precaution on his part for which I was not ungrateful . Frances Sutherland was throned on the boxes of our quondam table , and I was reclining against saddle-blankets at her feet .