lose 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.

The excitement brought Beef Bissell around the house from the front
veranda, where he had been grumbling and swearing all the morning. At
sight of Larkin he halted in his tracks and began to redden. But he got no
farther, for Julie flung herself into his arms, tears of happiness
streaming down her face, and overwhelmed him with caresses.

Bissell was mightily relieved to see her. In fact, it had been all his
wife could do to restrain him from starting out to unearth Julie when he
arrived home and found her gone. But Martha said that the girl had gone to
find Larkin, and added that the t