It was two o'clock in the afternoon.

The caribou were roasting brown.
In two more hours the feast would begin.

The hour of the fight was at hand.
In the centre of the clearing three hundred men, women, and children were gathered in a close circle about a sapling cage ten feet square.
Close to this cage, one at each side, were drawn the two smaller cages.
Beside one of these cages stood Henri Durant; beside the other, Grouse Piet.

They were not bantering now.

Their faces were hard and set.