Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/82

 This was Woolly Annie, the sheep queen, in from her sheep range on the headwaters of Poison Spider for a spree of buying in Two Moons. Once comfortably seated, she observed the two cowmen leisurely. Her great moon face, red and wind-wrinkled as a frosted apple, gathered into a quizzical mask of tolerant disgust—as if from a safe distance she were watching two skunks at play. Timberline Todd, leaning forward elbows on table and a can of peaches between his hands, was holding up for the other's inspection the gaudy gold and red label.

"See that woman in the picture?" he was adjuring in a high nasal whine; "that there 's Minervy at the Well like I told you."

"Minervy's grandma's pet aunt!" Andy Dorson snorted. "Show me a camel standin' round anywhere in the picture waitin' to be watered by a Jew girl. Show me a pitcher! Show me a well! An' what 's Minervy doin' with that ox-goad she 's got in her hand? Why she wearin' that helmet on her head? Answer me pronto, Mister Todd."

A distinct snort from the direction of the table where sat Woolly Annie—a snort from Gargantuan nostrils. Neither of the cowmen