While Old Heck and Ophelia were in Eagle Butte getting married, Skinny and Carolyn June had been riding line on the upland pasture fence. They had just returned to the Quarter Circle KT, unsaddled their horses, turned them into the pasture, gone to the house and stopped a moment on the front porch to watch the glow in the west--the sun was dipping into a thundercap over the Costejo Mountains--when the Clagstone "Six" rolled down the grade and up to the string of poplars before the house. "Gee, we thought you two had eloped!" Carolyn June laughed as the couple climbed out of the car and came, rather bashfully, in at the gate. Old Heck and Ophelia looked at each other guiltily. "We did come darn near it!" Old Heck chuckled, plunging at once into the task of breaking the news. "We got married--I reckon you'd call that the next thing to eloping!" "Got married?" Skinny and Carolyn June cried together. "Who--who--got married?" Skinny repeated incredulously. "Ophelia and me," Old Heck answered with a sheepish grin but proudly. "Who else did you think we meant? We just thought," he continued by way of explanation, "we'd go ahead and do it kind of private and save a lot of excitement and everything!" Carolyn June threw her arms around Ophelia and kissed her. "Good-by, chaperon," she laughed With a half-sob in her throat, "h--hello, 'Aunt.'" Then she strangled Old Heck with a hug that made him gasp. "What the devil--are you trying to do--choke me?" "Well, by thunder, Old Heck!" Skinny finally managed to ejaculate, "it was the sensiblest thing you ever done! I--I've--been"--with a sidelong look at Carolyn June--"kind of figuring on doing it myself!"