noon
In time ? No ; it was delivered twenty minutes after the Judge had left for his train . Sun-lulled into immobility , the desert around the lonely little station of Manzanita smouldered and slumbered . Nothing was visibly changed from five years before , when Banneker left , except that another agent , a disillusioned-appearing young man with a corn-colored mustache , came forth to meet the slow noon local , chuffing pantingly in under a bad head of alkali-water steam . A lone passenger , obviously Eastern in mien and garb , disembarked , and was welcomed by a dark , beautiful , harassed-looking girl who had just ridden in on a lathered pony . The agent , a hopeful soul , ambled within earshot . `` How is she ? ''