noon
And if you stop to think of it , such credentials are not easily forged , for nature writes them down , and nature is a truth-loving old dame who will never lead you far astray if only she is left alone to do her work in peace . It transpired , in the course of the forenoon 's travel , that Cash Markham would like to have a partner , if he could find a man that suited . One guessed that he was fastidious in the matter of choosing his companions , in spite of the easy way in which he had accepted Bud . By noon they had agreed that Bud should go along and help relocate the widow 's claim . Cash Markham hinted that they might do a little prospecting on their own account . It was a country he had long wanted to get into , he said , and while he intended to do what Mrs. Thompson had hired him to do , still there was no law against their prospecting on their own account . And that , he explained , was one reason why he wanted a good man along .