Although none of the settlers present seemed disposed to attribute the extraordinary physical powers, which Gaut Gurley had so unmistakably shown, to any supernatural agency, as the trapper, Codman, whose other singularities were not without a smart sprinkling of superstition, was obviously inclining to do, yet those powers were especially calculated, as may well be supposed of men of their class, to make a strong impression on the minds of them all, and invest the possessor with an importance which, in their eyes, he could in no other way obtain. Accordingly he soon came to be looked upon as the lion of the day, and suddenly thus acquired, for the time being, as he doubtless shrewdly calculated he could do in this way, a consequence and influence of which no other man could boast, perhaps, in the whole settlement.
Meanwhile the work of clearing off the logs was prosecuted with increasing spirit and resolution. And so eagerly intent had all the hands become, in pressing forward to its completion their self-imposed task, which all could see was now fast drawing to a close, that they took no note of the flight of time, and were consequently taken by surprise when the sound of the horn summoned them to their midday meal.
"Why! it can't yet be noon," exclaimed one, glancing up at the sun.
"No" responded another. "Some of us here have been counting on seeing the whole job nearly done by noon, but it will take three hours yet to do that. No, the women must have made a mistake."
"Well, I don't know about that: let us see," said the hunter, turning his back to the sun, and throwing out one foot as far as he could while keeping his body perpendicular. "Now my clock, which, for noon on the 21st of June, or longest day of summer, is the shadow of my head falling on half my foot, and then passing off beyond it about half an inch each day for the rest of the season, makes it, as I should calculate the distance between my foot and the shadow of my head, now evidently receding,—makes it, for this last day of August, about a quarter past twelve."
"I am but little over half past eleven," said Codman, pulling out and inspecting an old watch. "Phillips, may be, is thinking of that deer that he has been promising himself and us for dinner; and, before I take his calculation on shadows and distances, I should like to know how many inches he allowed for the hurrying influence of his appetite."
"What nonsense, Comical! But what you mean by it is, I suppose, that I can't tell the time?"
"Not within half an hour by the sun."
"Why, man, it is the sun that makes the time; and, as that body never gets out of order or runs down, why not learn to read it, and depend directly upon it for the hour of the day? If half the time men spend in bothering over timepieces were devoted to studying the great clock of the heavens, they need not depend on such uncertain contrivances as common clocks and watches to know the time of day."
"But how in cloudy weather?"