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 Woolly Annie over on Poison Spider—her father had said the big shepherdess was square—she would go to her, ask her to outfit the sheep wagons that had been the property of Old Man Ring and permit Hilma Ring to throw in her lot with the sheep queen's. Did she not have sheep on Woolly Annie's range? The sheep books she had carried away from the cabin and somewhere lost proved that fact. Woolly Annie surely would not demand proof of possession. Stronger than all practical demands of the hour, however, was the girl's poignant agony of lonesomeness crying to be abated.

So on this morning of golden glory when the Spout first heard the clatter of rifles and the three who had descended the Ladder found themselves suddenly trapped, Hilma Ring hurried her breakfast and gathered together a small bundle of clothes in preparation for the long ride cross country to the domain of the sheep queen. She went out to the corral to saddle the somnolent Christian.

Hilma had the saddle on the horse and was just about to mount to ride him to the cabin door when her eye fell upon three swiftly moving dots against the brown flank of a long hill