about three
o'clock
More than that , he was becoming resentful of extra work and bother and he sometimes permitted his resentment to carry him farther than was wise . To quarrel with Patsy was rapidly becoming the fashion , and to gossip about him and his faults was already a habit ; a habit indulged in too freely , perhaps , for the good of the camp . Isolation from the world brings small things into greater prominence than is normally their due , and large troubles are born of very small irritations . For two days there was peace of a sort , and then Big Medicine , having eaten no dinner because of a headache , rode into camp about three o'clock and headed straight for the mess-wagon , quite as if he had a right that must not be questioned . Custom did indeed warrant him in lunching without the ceremony of asking leave of the cook , for Patsy even in his most unpleasant moods had never until lately tried to stop anyone from eating when he was hungry . On this day , however , Big Medicine unthinkingly cut into a fresh-baked pie set out to cool . There were other pies , and in cutting one Big Medicine was supported by precedent ; but Patsy chose to consider it an affront and snatched the pie from under Big Medicine 's very nose .