noon
But on reaching the ranch we learned that the hunting party had not returned , nor had the mistress . The next morning we resumed our work , Quayle and Cotton at corral building and I at the rock quarry . The work had progressed during my absence , and the number of pieces desired was nearing completion , and with but one team hauling the work-shop was already congested with cut building stone . By noon the quarry was so cluttered with blocks that I ordered half the help to take axes and go to the encinal to cut dry oak wood for burning the lime . With the remainder of my outfit we cleaned out and sealed off the walls of an old lime kiln , which had served ever since the first rock buildings rose on Las Palomas . The oven was cut in the same porous formation , the interior resembling an immense jug , possibly twelve feet in diameter and fifteen feet in height to the surface of the ledge . By locating the kiln near the abrupt wall of an abandoned quarry , ventilation was given from below by a connecting tunnel some twenty feet in length .