(NB: This would have been a story if I could plot!)


"Stake out a stable? On Christmas Eve?" Doyle demanded indignantly. "Tell the Cow to pull the other leg--the one with jinglebells on!"

Bodie shrugged. "Seemed serious."

Doyle snorted. "Tell you what, sunshine, if any pregnant birds show up on little donkeys, I'm off home!"

Well after midnight, Cowley's voice: "They changed the rendezvous and we've picked up the three gunrunners. Merry Christmas."

"Bit of comfort and joy?" Bodie suggested hopefully.

Doyle contemplated the fodder-holding structures. "Not that roomy, are they?"

"Suppose they hold what a horse needs. Why?"

"Fancied havin' it away in a manger."

-- THE END --

December 1998