noon
`` Canada , he gat plenty log -- too plenty . Tradair tak ' ze drapeau , ze viskey , ze tick-tick , but not ze log . '' Here the conversation was ended by the arrival at the scene of labor , and the work of dislodging stranded logs was begun . All day long they toiled at the difficult task , straining , lifting , stumbling , rolling , and slipping on the wet rocks , receiving many a bump and bruise , pausing only for a bite of lunch and a whiff of pipe-smoke at noon , and finally returning to Laughing Fish at dusk , slowly towing into the cove a small raft of the recovered wreckage . For several days longer , sometimes in clear weather , but often in cheerless rain and fog , was the task of collecting such logs as had stranded on the south side of the cove continued . At length the last one was gathered from that direction , and our wreckers were ready to explore the coast lying to the northward . Not since the day of his coming had Peveril found leisure to revisit the place where he had seen the mysterious figure of the cliffs .