Old Sol was unusually torpid, as if the ominous obscurity had dazed him, too.

After a time he stopped short and snorted; we heard the brush crackle and caught a glimpse of a large animal crossing the road ahead of us.
"That's a bear," Thomas said.

"Bears are out, just as if it were night." Some minutes passed before we could make Old Sol go on; and again we heard owls hooting in the woods.
Long before we got down to the cleared land, however, the sky began gradually to grow lighter.

We all noticed it, and a feeling of relief stole over us.

In the course of twenty minutes it became so light that we could discern objects round us quite plainly.