midday
The Law took up once more his hazardous trail , and David Carrigan was the messenger it sent . `` Bring him back , alive or dead , '' were Superintendent McVane 's last words . And now , thinking of that parting injunction , Carrigan grinned , even as the sweat of death dampened his face in the heat of the afternoon sun . For at the end of those sixty minutes that had passed since his midday pot of tea , the grimly , atrociously unexpected had happened , like a thunderbolt out of the azure of the sky . Huddled behind a rock which was scarcely larger than his body , groveling in the white , soft sand like a turtle making a nest for its eggs , Carrigan told himself this without any reservation . He was , as he kept repeating to himself for the comfort of his soul , in a deuce of a fix . His head was bare -- simply because a bullet had taken his hat away .