A moment later Ophelia and Old Heck, both much embarrassed but tremulously happy, stepped inside the door of the parsonage.

They were driving away from the minister’s house—­going to the Occidental Hotel for a little all-by-their-ownselves “wedding luncheon”—­before either thought of the matter concerning which Ophelia had desired to see the clergyman’s wife.

“Gee whiz!” Old Heck exclaimed, “you forgot that consultation or whatever it was with Mrs. Patterson to start your woman’s suffrage ’movement’—­”

“To start my what?”

“Your ‘woman’s rights,’ ’female voter’s organization’—­or whatever it is!” Old Heck explained, a new-born tolerance in his voice.  “I didn’t mean to interfere with your political activities—­”

Ophelia threw back! her head, while a ripple of laughter trilled out above the purr of the Clagstone “Six.”

“Why, my dear—­dear—­Old Boy!” she cried, “I am not engaged in ‘political activities,’ or ‘suffragette movements!’ Of course,” she continued archly, “I believe women ought to be allowed to vote—­if they haven’t intelligence enough for that they haven’t brains enough to be good ‘pardners’ with their husbands—­”

“By gosh, you’re right!” Old Heck agreed, “I never thought of it that way before!”

“And,” she continued, “naturally I shall vote whenever the opportunity comes, but I’m not an ‘Organizer’ for anything of that kind.  Mrs. Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle Butte, into a club for the study of ’Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!’ We think we should be as proficient in those arts—­and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions—­as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in which they themselves are engaged.”

“So that’s what you’re an ‘Organizer’ for?” Old Heck queried while a radiant contentment spread over his face.

“That is it,” Ophelia said simply, adding with a most becoming heightening of color, “it is so we will be—­will be—­better wives!”

“My Gawd!” Old Heck breathed fervently.  “My Gawd!  The Lord has been good to me to-day!”

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!”