nine o'clock
`` He 's worth several thousand to me alive , '' replied Langdon , with which enigmatic retort he dropped behind to see how Muskwa was riding . The cub was rolling and pitching about in his pannier like a raw amateur in a howdab on an elephant 's back , and after contemplating him for a few moments Langdon caught up with Bruce again . Half a dozen times during the next two or three hours he visited Muskwa , and each time that he returned to Bruce he was quieter , as if debating something with himself . It was nine o'clock when they came to what was undoubtedly the end of Thor 's valley . A mountain rose up squarely in the face of it , and the stream they were following swung sharply to the westward into a narrow canyon . On the east rose a green and undulating slope up which the horses could easily travel , and which would take the outfit into a new valley in the direction of the Driftwood . This course Bruce decided to pursue .