About four o'clock in the afternoon
Thursday was a repetition of the previous day . Nothing occurred worthy of special mention . The boys covered ten or fifteen miles in spite of the dams that frequently blocked the way . About four o'clock in the afternoon , while passing through a lonely and beautiful strip of country , they came upon five tiny islands grouped together in mid channel . The largest was not more than a dozen yards long . All were grassy and shaded by trees , and they made a pretty picture with the water rippling softly through the narrow winding channels that separated them . As the bushes and timber on both banks of the creek were very dense , the boys chose one of the islands for a camping place -- the left hand one of two that lay a little farther down stream than the others .