noon
Had not Linder said , `` Burn the grass on the road ? '' Drazk knew well enough that Linder 's remark was a figure of speech , but his eccentric mind found no trouble in converting it into literal instructions . Drazk sniffed the air and looked at the sun . A soft breeze was moving slowly up the valley ; the sun was just past noon . There was every reason to expect that as the lowland prairies grew hot with the afternoon sunshine a breeze would come down out of the mountains to occupy the area of great atmospheric expansion . Drazk knew nothing about the theory of the thing ; all that concerned him was the fact that by mid-afternoon the wind would probably change to the west . Two miles down the valley he found a gully which gave access to the water 's edge .