"Carolyn June," Ophelia said when they were alone, "I have made a discovery—"
"It is?" questioningly.
"That western Texas is the 'quickest' country in the world!" the widow answered.
"Please explain," Carolyn June said, "although," demurely, with certain memories fresh in her mind, "I fancy I can almost guess—"
"Yesterday," Ophelia continued rather breathlessly, "we arrived at the Quarter Circle KT; last night at the supper table I met Mr. Parker for the first time; ten minutes later he kicked me—accidentally, I think—on the shins; I saw him again at breakfast this morning; to-day we drove to Eagle Butte and this afternoon"—she paused and then with a quick, nervous laugh finished—"he asked me to marry him!"
"Good lord," Carolyn June gasped, "that is—'pronto'—as these cowboys say! 'Quick' with a vengeance! There must be something in this western air that makes them do it!"
"It was all I could do this morning to keep Skinny from—" she started to say, then shifted again to the subject of Parker. "Did he know that you are—"
"National Organizer for the 'Movement,'" Ophelia filled in. "Yes, I had already confessed. I told him as we were driving to town—and the other—the shock—came just after we crossed the bridge when we were returning home!"
"He is a bold, dangerous man!" Carolyn June exclaimed, in mock seriousness, "trying to get ahead of Uncle Josiah!"
"I inferred as much," the widow explained; "he told me that to-morrow would be your uncle's 'day'—whatever he meant by that; the next he, Mr. Parker himself, would be 'around' again. 'Unless Old Heck took some fool notion or other;' before long he would be away on the beef hunt and one can never tell what might happen while one is gone and, well, that's the way he felt about it, so he just said it—"