e Kettle Hole Ranch grove. The marriage was to be "_al fresco_," as
the Limone _Limerick_ repeated several times.

Blondell found it a hard day, for what with looking after the roasting
ox and the ice and the beer, he was almost too busy to say hello to his
guests. Fan had contrived to get a clean shirt on him by the trick of
whisking away his old one and substituting a white one in its place. He
put this on without realizing how splendid it was, but rebelled flatly
at the collar, and by the time the ox was well basted his shirt was
subdued to a condition which left him almost at ease with himself.

Fan received the people at the door of the shack--her mother being too
busy in the preparation for dinner to do more than say "Howdy?" to those
who deliberately sought her out; but Fan was not embarrassed or wearied.
It was her great day--she was only a little disturbed when George
Adelbert fled to his room for a little relief from the strain of his
position, for he lacked both her serenity of spirit and her physical
health.

Once Lester would have enjoyed the action and comment of these people as
characters in a play, but now the knowledge that he was about to sink to
their level and be nailed there filled him with a fear and disgust which
not even the radiant face and alluring body of his bride could conceal
or drive out. These lumbering ranchers, these tobacco-chewing, drawling
lumpkins, were they to be his companions for the rest of his life? These
women with their toothless, shapeless mouths, these worn and weary
mothers in home-made calico and cheap millinery, were they to be the
visitors at his fireside? What kind of woman would they make of Fan?

By one o'clock the corrals were full of ponies and the sheds and yards
crowded with carriages all faded by the pitiless sun and sucked dry by
the never-resting wind of the plain.

Meanwhile the young women had set long tables in the back yard and
covered them with food--contributed chicken, home-made biscuit, cake,
and pie, while the young fellows had been noisily working at
constructing a "bowery" for the dance which was to follow the ceremony
at three. And at last Fan raised a bugle-call for "_dinner!_" and they
all came with a rush.

The feast did not last long, for every one was hungry and ate without
permitting delay or distraction. Nearly all remarked on having had a
very early breakfast, and they certainly showed capacity for not merely
beef and beer, but pie an