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 he.
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.”