midday
`` I am glad that we happened along , '' said the officer . `` The highways are not safe these days . Our state troops are doing what we can toward making them so , but good men are scarce and robbers many . 'T was the merest accident that we chose that spot for our midday meal . We were right in the midst of it when you were seen with those miscreants in pursuit . '' `` But , '' spoke the youth with some bewilderment , `` my uncle wrote that their depredations had ceased since Yorktown . '' `` And so they did for a time , but the respite was short .