to pack. You, Limpy, get out that red and yaller blanket of your'n for Miss Sally's skyirt. Marquis, you'll do 'thout fixin'; nobody don't ever look at the groom.'
During their absurd preparation, the two principals were left alone for a few moments in the tent. The Marquis suddenly showed wild perturbation.
'This foolishness must not go on,' he said, turning to Miss Sally a face white in the light of the lantern, hanging to the ridge-pole.
'Why not?' said the cook, with an amused smile. 'It's fun for the boys; and they've always let you off pretty light in their frolics. I don't mind it.'
'But you don't understand,' persisted the Marquis, pleadingly. 'That man is county judge, and his acts are binding. I can't--oh, you don't know--'
The cook stepped forward and took the Marquis's hands.
'Sally Bascom,' he said, 'I KNOW!'
'You know!' faltered the Marquis, trembling. 'And you--want to--'
'More than I ever wanted anything. Will you--here come the boys!'
The cow-punchers crowded in, laden with armfuls of decorations.
'Perfifious coyote!' said Phonograph, sternly, addressing the Marquis. 'Air you willing to patch up the damage you've did this ere slab-sided but trustin' bunch o' calico by single-footin' easy to the altar, or will we have to rope ye, and drag you thar?'
The Marquis pushed back his hat, and leaned jauntily against some high-piled sacks of beans. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were shining.
'Go on with the rat killin',' said be.
A little while after a procession approached the tree under which Hackett, Holly, and Saunders were sitting smoking.
Limpy Walker was in the lead, extracting a doleful tune from his concertina. Next came the bride and groom. The cook wore the gorgeous Navajo blanket tied around his waist and carried in one band the waxen-white Spanish dagger blossom as large as a peck-measure and weighing fifteen pounds. His hat was ornamented with mesquite branches and yellow ratama blooms. A resurrected mosquito bar served as a veil. After them stumbled Phonograph Davis, in the character of the bride's father, weeping into a saddle blanket with sobs that could be heard a mile away. The cow-punchers followed by twos, loudly commenting upon the bride's appearance, in a supposed imitation of the audiences at fashionable weddings.
Hackett rose as the procession halted before him, and after a little lecture upon matrimony, asked:
'What are your names?'
'Sally and Charles,' answered the cook.
'Join hands, Charles and Sally.'
Perhaps there never was a stranger wedding. For, wedding it was, though only two of those present knew it. When the ceremony was over, the cow-punchers gave one yell of congratulation and immediately abandoned their foolery for the night. Blankets were unrolled and sleep became the paramount question.
The cook (divested of his decorations) and the Marquis lingered for a moment in the shadow of the grub wagon. The Marquis leaned her head against his shoulder.
'I didn't know what else to do,' she was saying. 'Father was gone, and we kids had to rustle. I had helped him so much with the cattle that I thought I'd turn cowboy. There wasn't anything else I could make a living at. I wasn't much stuck on it though, after I got here, and I'd have left only--'
'Only what?'
'You know. Tell me something. When did you first--what made you--'
'Oh, it was as soon as we struck the camp, when Saunders bawled out 'The Marquis and Miss Sally!' I saw how rattled you got at the name, and I had my sus--'
'Cheeky!' whispered the Marquis. 'And why should you think that I thought he was calling me 'Miss Sally'?'
'Because,' answered the cook, calmly, 'I was the Marquis. My father was the Marquis of Borodale. But you'll excuse that, won't you, Sally? It really isn't my fault, you know.'
[
The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by the high-turned overcoat collar.
'I would rather not supply you,' he said doubtfully. 'I sold you a dozen morphine tablets less than an hour ago.'
The customer smiles wanly. 'The fault is in your crooked streets. I didn't intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled up. Excuse me.'
He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops under an electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly with three or four little pasteboard boxes. 'Thirty-six,' he announces to himself. 'More than plenty.' For a gray mist had swept upon Santone that night, an opaque terror that laid a hand to the throat of each of the city's guests. It was computed that three thousand invalids were hibernating in the town. They had come from far and wide, for here, among these contracted river-sliced streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to linger.
Purest atmosphere, sir, on earth! You might think from the river winding through our town that we are malarial, but, no, sir! Repeated experiments made both by the Government and local experts show that our air contains nothing deleterious--nothing but ozone, sir, pure ozone. Litmus paper tests made all along the river show--but you can read it all in the prospectuses; or the Santonian will recite it for you, word by word.
