Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/187

 sheep wagons before burning 'em an' then shoot down an' stampede two sheep bands."

The shepherdess of Poison Spider caught the glimmerings of an exultant grin on the face of a bow-legged man with chaps who stood on the fringe of the crowd. She pilloried him with a forefinger thick as a thole pin.

"Ye-ah, grin, you pore orphan idjit! Big joke, ain't it? Purty rich, I call it, to ride out to my sheep range an' bust up two bands of nigh onto twelve hundred muttons. Well, my men you shot at an' hogtied recognized five of your merry companions, an' if there 's a grand jury in this town with guts into 'em, a passel of sheep killers is goin' be inside Rawlins pen lookin' out before long. You!"—the lady's wrath nearly suffocated her—"hear me hang up my honk! Only thing the matter with this town, there 's not enough funerals, an' the funeral industry 's going to be flourishin' right soon."

A sympathetic murmur from the crowd caused the man with the chaps to erase himself from the immediate vicinity with some celerity. Woolly Annie stiffly dismounted and, with the fan-eared Dolphus and the black-visaged foreman as escort, she made her