nine o'clock
Life was at his elbow almost but he could not make himself aware of that . The forested wilderness affected him much as a small child is affected by the dark . He was not afraid of this depressing sense of emptiness , but it troubled him . Before nine o'clock in the forenoon had rolled around he set off with the express purpose of making himself acquainted with Sam Carr . Carr was a white man , a scholar , MacLeod had said . Passing over the other things MacLeod had mentioned for his benefit Thompson , in his dimly realized need of some mental stimulus , could not think of a white man and a scholar being aught but a special blessing in that primeval solitude . Thompson had run across that phrase in books -- primeval solitude .