noon
Occasionally Hiram had stepped down to the pasture and squinted across to the water-hole . The grass was not long enough yet to turn the cow into the field , so he was obliged to make these special trips to the pasture . He had seen nothing of the Dickersons -- to speak to , that is -- since his trouble with Pete . And , of a sudden , just before dinner one noon , Hiram took a look at the pasture and beheld a figure seemingly working down in the corner . Hiram ran swiftly in that direction . Half-way there he saw that it was Pete , and that he had deliberately cut out a panel of the fence and was letting a pair of horses he had been plowing with , drink at the pool , before he took them home to the Dickerson stable . Hiram stopped running and recovered his breath before he reached the lower corner of the pasture .