noon
He finished his strictly utilitarian household labor and went off up the flat to the sluice boxes . Bud had not moved from his first position on the bed , but he did not breathe like a sleeping man . Not at first ; after an hour or so he did sleep , heavily and with queer , muddled dreams that had no sequence and left only a disturbed sense of discomfort behind then . At noon or a little after Cash returned to the cabin , cast a sour look of contempt at the recumbent Bud , and built a fire in the old cookstove . He got his dinner , ate it , and washed his dishes with never a word to Bud , who had wakened and lay with his eyes half open , sluggishly miserable and staring dully at the rough spruce logs of the wall . Cash put on his cap , looked at Bud and gave a snort , and went off again to his work . Bud lay still for awhile longer , staring dully at the wall .