Noon
I 'll neck these bullets , an ' git together some vittles fur the trip , an ' then I 'll lay down a while . We orter start airly -- soon arter daybreak . '' They did start early the next morning , with Aunt Debby riding upon the roads that wound around the mountain sides , while Fortner led the men through the shorter by-paths . Noon had passed some hours , and yet they had come across no signs of wagons . Aunt Debby was riding along a road cut out of the rocks about mid-way up the mountain . To her right the descent was almost perpendicular for a hundred feet or more to where a creek ran at the bottom of a cliff . To her left the hill rose up steeply to a great height .