Tucson

Tucson is the setting for the private honeymoon of Dan Davis and Ricky, immediately after their wedding in Yuma. At a guest ranch near the city, the newlyweds retreat from other people into a cabin of their own; the episode gives their long-awaited marriage a quiet domestic setting, with Pete’s territorial battle supplying its one stated complication.

Setting and Retreat

Dan and Ricky leave Yuma at once and travel to a guest ranch near Tucson. They take a cabin away from the main lodge, deliberately arranging their stay so they do not need to see anyone. The ranch therefore serves less as a public destination than as a temporary refuge for the couple’s first days together.

Domestic Life and Pete

The cabin is equipped with their own Eager Beaver to fetch and carry, extending the household automation associated with the story’s wider world into their honeymoon. Pete, Dan’s cat, disrupts the privacy in a different way: he fights a monumental battle with the tomcat that had previously ruled the ranch. The couple must then keep Pete indoors or watch him, the only shortcoming Dan identifies in the stay.

Narrative Significance

Dan’s account contrasts the wedding’s public formality—the county clerk’s book and witnesses gathered at the courthouse—with the seclusion near Tucson. The focus shifts from securing the marriage to inhabiting it: Ricky takes to married life as if she had invented it, while Dan reduces his own happiness to the fact that he has Ricky. Tucson thus anchors a compact domestic resolution, where technological convenience and a cat’s territorial instincts frame the couple’s newly shared life.