Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/185

 his right hand, watched from the window his recent visitor cross the street and turn in the direction of the jail.

"House pets like that ought n't run loose in this man's country 'thout a bell tied under their chins," he mused aloud. Then he, too, went down to the street, for Original knew the issues of this day would bulk large, and no man might foresee their outcome.

Into the froth of Two Moons' bubbling pot, near noon, rode another, bringing added spice to the already high savor of the broth of excitement. It was Woolly Annie, the sheep queen of Poison Spider, accompanied by her hopeful son Dolphus and a sheep foreman of forbidding appearance. Greatly altered was the lady's mien from that riotous mood of elephantine joy which had possessed her when she rode out of Two Moons a few days before. Her expansive features were clotted into a thundercloud whence lightning flashes from the eyes warned of a general low pressure and storm conditions. The set of her great span of shoulders and poise of her huge head both cried to Two Moons that somebody weighing about one hundred and ninety pounds and