midday
`` If I was fifteen years limberer and fifty pounds slimmer , I du n no but what I 'd set into this ranch game myself . It 's sure peaceful . '' Foolishly they agreed that it was . In those days of large leisure and cyclonic bursts of excitement and activity ; of midday siestas and moonlight serenades -- and a duel , perchance , at sunrise -- the spring rodeo was one of the year 's events , to be looked forward to all winter by the vaqueros ; and when it was over , to be talked of afterwards for months . A mark from which to measure the passing of time , it was ; a date for the fixing of incidents in the memory of men . In the valley of Santa Clara , rodeo time really began when the Picardo vaqueros cinched saddles upon restive mustangs some misty morning , and with shouts and laughter and sombreros waving high over black heads in adieu to those who remained behind , swept down the slope like a charge of gayly caparisoned cavalry , driving the loose saddle horses before them . Past the stone and adobe wall of the home pasture , past the fences where the rails were held to their posts with rawhide thongs , which the coyotes sometimes chewed to pulp and so made extra work for the peons , they raced , exultant with life .