midnight
A large-breasted , calf-faced girl with a crooked mouth . Taterleg might wait a year , or even four years more , with perfect safety . Nettie would not move very fast on the market , even in Wyoming , where ladies were said to be scarce . And so , pounding along , mile after mile through the vast green land where the bread of a nation grew , arriving at midnight among squeals and moans , trembling bleat of sheep , pitiful , hungry crying of calves , high , lonesome tenor notes of bewildered steers . That was the end of the journey for him , the beginning of the great adventure for the creatures under his care . By eleven o'clock next morning , Lambert had a check for the cattle in his pocket , and bay rum on his face where the dust , the cinders and the beard had been but a little while before . He bought a little hand satchel in a second-hand store to carry the money home in , cashed his check and took a turn looking around , his big gun on his leg , his high-heeled boots making him toddle along in a rather ridiculous gait for an able-bodied cow-puncher from the Bad Lands .