Meanwhile he appropriated one horse that had not been in the corral and trotted homeward, eaten by chagrin and beside himself with impotent fury. Bud and Julie had found this out the day of their talk concerning Lester, when they forded the stream on horses and asked for Bissell. Under the circumstances Bud developed a genius for inspiration that was little short of marvelous. "What's the use of riding all the way home and having a grand row with your father?" he asked. "Why not go over to Rattlesnake, where there's a sky-pilot, and be married? Then we'll go home, and there can't be any row, because there will only be one party in the mood for it." But the girl demurred. It was cruel to her father and mother, she said, not to have them present on the greatest day of her life. She allowed it was mighty ungrateful after all they had done for her. Then Bud took her hand in his and told her his principal reasons. "I'm a business man, honey, and I've got to start north after Simmy and the sheep in three or four days," he said. "Shearing is late now, but I guess we can make it. This trouble has set me behind close to fifteen thousand dollars, and everything is in a critical state. "I know it don't sound much like a lover, but as soon as we get on our feet we'll take a honeymoon to Japan that will make you think I'd never heard of a sheep. "You want your mother and father in on the joy, I know, but it doesn't seem to me there can be much joy with nine or ten men sitting around waiting for their necks to be stretched. Does it to you?" "No," said Julie, and shuddered. "Then come along over to Rattlesnake and be married. Then we'll ride back to the Bar T, so you can see your folks, and I can see Caldwell. We can be through and away before anything is really done about the rustlers." So it was arranged, and the two were married by an Episcopal clergyman who had a surplice but no cassock, and whose trouser-legs looked very funny moving about inside the thin, white material--and Julie nearly laughed out loud. After the ceremony they had ridden out of town with their equipment and made their first honeymoon camp in a cool, green place beside a little brook that had trout in it and sang to them for hours on end. Now, the day afterward, they were on the way home, and not without a few secret misgivings. As they neared the Bar T a single man rode out to meet them. It was Lester, who had come the night before and was waiting for Bud, so as to be present at the interview with Smithy Caldwell, whom he had not yet seen. He congratulated the pair warmly and rode with them to the corral. Suddenly there was a shriek, and Martha Bissell tore out of the cook-house. She ran to Julie, kissed her, and welcomed her back; then when she heard the news she picked up her apron to start crying, and dropped it again, undecided what to do. What with Bissell's safe arrival and Julie's glorious home-coming the poor woman was nearly out of her mind.