He drained his glass and went to the door, as if the need to do something at once were upon him. He saw that the wedding guests were filling the streets, and moving into the Inn. All of Inch was out there—the women gorgeous in all that they had, and even some of the men dressed in the clothes which they wore on a journey. Already some were drunken, and all were loud with merriment, which they somehow felt was required of them, like eating three times a day or scorning a stranger. Everywhere there were children, who must needs go where the grown folk went or be left alone. “Parents Must Keep Children Off the Floor,” was posted on the walls of the Inch public dance halls. Next to the office door, the door of the hotel bar stood open now, and by the array of cut colored paper hanging from the chandeliers, he guessed that the wedding was to be solemnized in there. This was natural—the bar was the largest room in the house, and the most magnificent in the town—the only bar, in fact, with a real mirror at the back. Moreover, Bunchy’s barkeeper was a man of parts, being a bass singer and a justice of the peace. With his apron laid aside, he was to give a tune while the guests assembled, and afterward it was he who was to perform the ceremony. Nobody thought of expecting the ceremony to be held in Jem Moor’s ’dobe. It was Jem Moor himself who, while the wedding guests were still noisily passing in the hotel, the Inger saw coming down the street. He was neatly dressed in the best he had, and though one trouser leg had crept to the top of a boot, and his red cravat was under an ear, still he bore signs of a sometime careful toilet. He broke into an uneven run—the running of a man whose feet are old and sore—and disappeared in the doorway of the Inn office. The Inger’s look followed him, speculatively. “But one more drink and I could be over there makin’ more kinds of hell than usual,” he said to himself, and went back to the bar. He was draining his glass when the sound of confused talk and movement came to him, and, as he wheeled, he saw that across the street the interior of the Inn bar and office were in an uproar. The wedding guests were rising, there were shouts and groans, and a shrill scream or two. Some came running to the street, and over all there burst occasional great jets of men’s laughter. “’S up?” asked the old barkeeper behind him. The Inger did not answer. He stood in the doorway waiting for something. He did not know what he waited for, but the imminent thing, whatever it was, held him still. A hope, which he could not have formulated, came shining slowly toward him, in him. In a moment, Jem Moor emerged from the office door, still brokenly running, seeking to escape from those who crowded with him, questioning him. The Inger strolled from the doorway, across the street, took his way through the little group which fell back for him, and brought his hand down on the old man’s shoulder. “Anything wrong?” he inquired.