NIE SAYS HE IS MUCH OBLIGED

Beatrice, just back from riding with Bromfield, stood on the steps in
front of the grilled door and stripped the gloves from her hands.

"I'm on fire with impatience, Bee," he told her. "I can hardly wait
for that three weeks to pass. The days drag when I'm not with you."

He was standing a step or two below her, a graceful, well-groomed
figure of ease, an altogether desirable catch in the matrimonial
market. His dark hair, parted in the middle, was beginning to thin,
and tiny crow's-feet radiated from the eyes, but he retained the light,
slim figure of youth. It ought not to be hard to love Clarendon
Bromfield, his fiancee reflected. Yet he disappointingly failed to
stir her pulses.

She smiled with friendly derision. "Poor Clary! You don't look like a
Vesuvius ready to erupt. You have such remarkable self-control."

His smile met hers. "I can't go up and down the street ringing a bell
like a town crier and shouting it out to everybody I meet."

Round the corner of the house a voice was lifted in tuneless song.

"Oh, I'm goin' home
Bull-whackin' for to spurn;
I ain't got a nickel,
And I don't give a dern.
'T is when I meet a pretty girl,
You bet I will or try,
I'll make her my little wife,
Root hog or die."

"You see Johnnie isn't ashamed to shout out his good intentions," she
said.

"Johnnie isn't engaged to the loveliest creature under heaven. He
doesn't have to lie awake nights for fear the skies will fall and blot
him out before his day of bliss."

Beatrice dropped a little curtsy. She held out her hand in dismissal.
"Till to-morrow, Clary."

As Bromfield turned away, Johnnie came round a corner of the house
dragging a garden hose. He was attacking another stanza of the song:

"There's hard times on old Bitter Creek
That never can be beat.
It was root hog or die
Under every wagon sheet.
We cleared up all the Indians,
Drank . . ."

The puncher stopped abruptly at sight of his mistress.

"What did you drink that has made you so happy this morning, Johnnie?"
she asked lightly.

The cowpuncher's secret burst from him. "I done got married, Miss
Beatrice."

"You--what?"

"I up and got married day before yesterday," he beamed.

"And who's the happy girl?"

"Kitty Mason. We jes' walked to the church round the corner. Clay he
stood up with us and give the bride away. It's me 'n' her for Arizona
_poco pronto