noon
Why , they were his friends , his partners , these voices in the night , and that clear laughter floated up from Harry Fisher who had been his bunkie at the Circle V Bar ranch three years ago . He felt an insane impulse to lean over the edge of the cliff and shout a greeting . Chapter VI . The Rifle Dawn found him over the first crest ; at noon he was struggling up the slope of the second range , whose rise was not half so sharp as the upward plunge out of the Asper , but in spite of that easier ground Grey Molly could not gain . She went with shorter steps , now , and her head hung lower and lower , yet when a down stretch opened before her she went at it with a gallop as light , almost , as her race out of Murphy 's Pass . Not once had she offered to stop ; not once had she winced from the labor of some sharp up-pitch ; but still six horsemen hung behind her , and at their head rode a little dusty man on a little dusty roan . It was the lack of training as well as the rough going which held Molly back .