noons
But here was a new and forbidding land . This was the Far West itself ; silent , inscrutable , unchanged , irreducible . The mightiness of its calm was a smiting thing . The awesomeness of its chill , indifferent nights , the unsparing ardors of its merciless noons , the measureless expanses of its levels , the cold barrenness of its hills -- these things did not invite as to the bosom of a welcoming mother ; they repelled , as with the chill gesture of a stranger turning away outcasts from the door . `` Here resolution almost faints ! '' wrote one . A general requisition was made on the scant stores Bridger had hurried through .