Why is "Dawn" translated "Mediodía"?

Question

Me parece que "mediodía" significa "noon" y "dawn" debe ser "amanecer," pero:

In "The Outcasts of Poker Flat / Los Desterrados de Poker Flat" (por Bret Harte) the original English has this:

"...waited for the dawn."

Whereas the Spanish translation puts it this way:

"...esperó la luz del mediodía,..."

Why would dawn be translated "mediodía" instead of "amanecer" here? It makes no sense, at any rate - the protagonist has been sleeping; it would naturally be the dawn he awaits, not noon.

Is there any possible sensible reason why "dawn" would be translated "mediodía" here?

Answer 1

Indeed, dawn should be translated as "amanecer" or "alba"

... esperó al amanecer.

... esperó a las primeras luces del alba

Seeing that you already found a really blatant example of bad translation in the version of that book you are working with, it should not be surprising this is another oner.

Answer 2

"Dawn" should be translated as "amanecer" or "alba" (less used), but not as "mediodía". It may refer to different hours depending of the country. The literal meaning is "half a day" or "the middle of a day" (12 a.m.) but in many countries we use it to talk about the hour when we have lunch (in Spain 2 or 3 p.m.).