noon
Presently he sat down beside the fire , and while he turned the meat with a forked stick , came back to the subject again . `` You see , I 'm away off any trail here , '' he said , `` and it 's all woods , with only a little patch of open here and there . It 's pure accident I happen to be here at all ; accident which comes of unadulterated cussedness on the part of one of my horses . I left the Meadows at noon , and Nigger -- that 's this confounded cayuse of mine -- he had to get scared and take to the brush . He got plumb away from me , and I had to track him . I did n't come up with him till dusk , and then the first good place I struck , which was here , I made camp . I was all for catching that horse , so I did n't pay much attention to where I was going .