noon
Down this valley rushed a tiny brook whose murmur the bitterest weather could not quite still . Along this brook grew quivering aspens , and beside it coyotes kept open a little trail . Along this trail , Doug set his traps , as well as up on the wall of the mountains where lynx-cats and wolverine were hid . Each day at noon , mounted on the Moose , with Prince at heel , he rode the circuit of the traps , seldom reaching home until long after supper was cleared away . There were days when , on leaving the ranch for the long , bitter-cold ride , it seemed to Douglas that he never could come back again , that the pain of living in the same house with Judith in her girlish indifference was to be endured no longer . The primitive intimacy in which the family dwelt made every hour at home a sort of torture to him , a torture that he did not wish to forego yet that he scarcely could endure . One can not say how much of Douglas ' self-control was due to innate refinement , how much to expediency , how much to the male power of inhibition when fighting to win the love of a woman .