noon
Hot , dry , and barren at its beginning , this cleft became cool and shady and luxuriant with grass and flowers and amber moss with silver blossoms . The rocks had changed color from yellow to deep red . Four hours of turning and twisting , endlessly down and down , over boulders and banks and every conceivable roughness of earth and rock , finished the pack-mustang ; and Slone mercifully left him in a long reach of canyon where grass and water never failed . In this place Slone halted for the noon hour , letting Nagger have his fill of the rich grazing . Nagger 's three days in grassy upland , despite the continuous travel by day , had improved him . He looked fat , and Slone had not yet caught the horse resting . Nagger was iron to endure .