The parson nodded, smiling. “When a man wants to get married he’ll not care much about the arrangements—how it gets done. What he wants to do is to get married.”
“That’s a queer angle,” Dakota observed. He laughed immoderately.
The parson laughed with him. It was an odd situation, he agreed. Never, in all his experience, had he heard of anything like it.
He had stopped for a few hours at Dry Bottom. While there a rider had passed through, carrying word that a certain man in Lazette, called “Baldy,” desired to get married. There was no minister in Lazette, not even a justice of the peace. But Baldy wanted to be married, and his bride-to-be objected to making the trip to Dry Bottom, where there were both a parson and a justice of the peace. Therefore, failing to induce the lady to go to the parson, it followed that Baldy must contrive to have the parson come to the lady. He dispatched the rider to Dry Bottom on this quest.
The rider had found that there was no regular parson in Dry Bottom and that the justice of the peace had departed the day before to some distant town for a visit. Luckily for Baldy’s matrimonial plans, the parson had been in Dry Bottom when the rider arrived, and he readily consented—as he intended to pass through Lazette anyway—to carry Baldy’s license to him and perform the ceremony.
“Odd, ain’t it?” remarked the parson, after he had concluded.
“That’s a queer angle,” repeated Dakota. “You got the license?” he inquired softly. “Mebbe you’ve lost it.”
“I reckon not.” The parson fumbled in a pocket, drawing out a folded paper. “I’ve got it, right enough.”
“You’ve got no objections to me looking at it?” came Dakota’s voice. Sheila saw him rise. There was a strange smile on his face.
“No objections. I reckon you’ll be usin’ one yourself one of these days.”