"What do you want?" Parker asked suspiciously, as he followed Old Heck around the corner of the barn.
"It's about Ophelia—" Old Heck began.
Parker's heart leaped and then dropped with a sickening foreboding of something disagreeable. The widow, he thought instantly, had told Old Heck about that darned fool proposal of marriage and was going to insist on him coming across and making good! There was no way out.
"I—I—reckon I'll have to do it if she's determined," Parker stuttered; "but—aw, hell—I must have been crazy—"
"Who's determined on what?" Old Heck asked, puzzled by the queer jumble coming from the lips of the Quarter Circle KT foreman, "and how crazy?"
"Ophelia determined on marrying me!" Parker blurted out.
"Ophelia marry you?" Old Heck exclaimed. "Marry you! She can't! Her and me have already done it. We got married to-day—that was what I wanted to tell you!"
Momentarily a pang of regret shot through Parker's heart. It was quickly followed by a sense of relief.
"You—you—and Ophelia married?" he stammered.
"We sure are," Old Heck answered positively. "We done it to-day!"