noon
And south and north of the Chain the fire rolled away into the west . * * * * * The Bishop of Alden looked restlessly out of the window as the intolerable , sooty train jolted its slow way northward along the canal and the Black River . He had left Albany in the very early hours of the morning . Now it was nearing noon and there were yet eighty miles , four hours , of this interminable journey before he could find a good wash and rest and some clean food . But he was not hungry , neither was he querulous . There were worse ways of travel than even by a slow and dusty train . And in his wide-flung , rock-strewn diocese the Bishop had found plenty of them .