e barn had gone to Laramie. However, we found a stove-pipe
hole, which saved delay. "And what day would you prefer the shower?"
said Hilbrun, after we had gone over our contract with him.

"Any day would do," the Governor said.

This was Thursday; and Sunday was chosen, as a day when no one had
business to detain him from witnessing the shower--though it seemed to
me that on week-days, too, business in Cheyenne was not so inexorable
as this. We gave the strangers some information about the town, and left
them. The sun went away in a cloudless sky, and came so again when the
stars had finished their untarnished shining. Friday was clear and dry
and hot, like the dynasty of blazing days that had gone before.

I saw a sorry spectacle in the street--the bridegroom and the bride
shopping together; or, rather, he with his wad of bills was obediently
paying for what she bought; and when I met them he was carrying a
scarlet parasol and a bonnet-box. His biscuit-shooter, with the lust of
purchase on her, was brilliantly dressed, and pervaded the street with
splendor, like an escaped parrot. Lin walked beside her, but it might as
well have been behind, and his bearing was so different from his
wonted happy-go-luckiness that I had a mind to take off my hat and say,
"Good-morning, Mrs. Lusk." But it was "Mrs. McLean" I said, of course.
She gave me a remote, imperious nod, and said, "Come on, Lin,"
something like a cross nurse, while he, out of sheer decency, made her a
good-humored, jocular answer, and said to me, "It takes a woman to know
what to buy for house-keepin,"; which poor piece of hypocrisy endeared
him to me more than ever. The puncher was not of the fibre to succeed in
keeping appearances, but he deserved success, which the angels consider
to be enough. I wondered if disenchantment had set in, or if this were
only the preliminary stage of surprise and wounding, and I felt that but
one test could show, namely, a coming face to face of Mr. and Mrs.
Lusk, perhaps not to be desired. Neither was it likely. The assistant
rain-maker kept himself steadfastly inside or near the barn, at the
north corner of Cheyenne, while the bride, when she was in the street at
all, haunted the shops clear across town diagonally.

On this Friday noon the appearance of the metal tube above the blind
building spread some excitement. It moved several of the citizens to pay
the place a visit and ask to see the machine. These callers, of course,