Kwang Lee set off firecrackers as the wedding carriage rolled away, as well he might have done. Charles called for nine cheers, and found himself cheering the last five of them on his own. It wasn’t that Collis and Hannah weren’t popular. It was simply that the plain folk of Sacramento found Collis too intense these days, too highly-charged, and Hannah too withdrawn.

The three clouds stayed motionless in the sky. Annie Jones waved her hat from the roadside as the wedding carriage went past, but Theodore kept his eyes on the ground. ‘Is he still mad at you?’ asked Hannah, holding tight on to Collis’s arm.

Collis nodded. ‘He won’t be for long. Wait until I rustle up the money he needs to finish his survey.’

The wedding breakfast had been prepared by Zeitman’s, the bakers, under Mary Tucker’s supervision. Thus although it was excellently cooked, it was good solid food with very little of the fancy about it. Twenty of them sat around the table in the upstairs dining-room at 54 K while three Chinese boys served stuffed cabbage, veal birds, lamb shanks, and rutabaga pudding. They drank steam beer, sweet white Napa Valley wine, and sherry, and drank more toasts than they could count. Leland made a speech which lasted nearly twenty minutes, and referred to Collis several times as ‘our esteemed expeditioner to distant summits’.

Collis, rising to reply to their toasts, said, ‘I wish to thank all of you who have had faith in me, here in Sacramento, and even those who haven’t. You all know that my colleagues and I have embarked on a difficult and controversial enterprise which, if it succeeds, will bring fresh prosperity to this town of ours, and momentous changes to the whole of the nation. We need all the support and encouragement we can get, and I’m happy to say that, today, I have acquired one of the finest supporters and encouragers that any man could hope for.’

Everyone applauded and cheered. Even Theodore tapped his spoon handle on the table and smiled across at Annie. As Collis sat down, however, it was to Hannah he looked first, and he was struck by the expression on her face. She was so calm, so self-possessed, and she was smiling with such obvious certainty about her new position as Mrs Collis Edmonds of Sacramento that Collis found himself wondering for a moment just who had married whom.

Charles stood up, swayed a little, and raised his glass. ‘For myself,’ he said, ‘I would like to say that Collis and Hannah Edmonds have both brought new life and new hope to Sacramento, and that I shall look forward eagerly to the birth of their first two progeny. The child, first, of course, but quickly afterwards the infant railroad! And when these arrive, all in the fullness of time, the Edmondses will be the only couple in Sutter County who have one baby which cries at night, and another which whistles!’