noon
When the day broke he was still alone . When Saul and the oxen were once fairly started , they plodded on steadily . The track lay some way from the river and above it , through the gap in the hills . Little of the hills did Saul see for he was moving under trees all the way , and when , before noon , he descended into the plain on the other side , he was still for a short time under a canopy of interlacing boughs . There was no road ; the trees were notched to show the track . In such forests there is little obstruction of brushwood , and over knoll and hollow , between the trunks , the oxen laboured on . Saul sat on the front ledge of the cart to balance it the better .