noon
They felt no gloom . The very implication of gloom , of fevered flesh , was remote from that which they had won together . When Hollister went up to the works in the morning , he found Mills humped on a box beside the fireplace in the old cabin , reading `` The Man Who Could n't Die . '' At noon he was gone somewhere . Over the noon meal in the split-cedar mess-house , the other bolt cutters spoke derisively of the man who laid off work for half a day to read a book . That was beyond their comprehension . But Hollister thought he understood .