noon
But , when the meal was over and the dishes washed and put away she was too sleepy to do anything but drop the huge wooden bar that the sheep herder had contrived to insure himself against a possible night attack from his enemies into its place and crawl into her bunk . How good it felt , she thought , sleepily -- the yielding air mattress , and the soft , clean blankets , after the straw tick on the floor , and the course sour blankets in the Wattses ' stuffy room . Somewhere , way off in the hills , a wolf howled and almost before the sound had died away the girl was asleep . It was past noon when Patty sank into the chair beside her table and glanced about her with a sigh of satisfaction . Warm June sunlight streamed through the open door and lay in a bright oblique patch upon the scrubbed floor . The girl 's glance strayed past the door and rested with approval upon the little flat across the creek where a neat pile of panels replaced the broken sheep corral . She had spent hours in untwisting the baling wire with which they had been fastened to the posts and dragging them to the pile , and other hours in chopping a supply of firewood , and picking up the cans and broken bottles and pitching them into the deep ravine of a side coulee .