but Hildebeest was no stranger to hard work. Nailing it to two beams in the Palace stable, she began scraping the remaining flesh off of the huge skin.

Splatters of old blood, meat, and fat soon covered everything in sight, but at last the rawboned Celt had the skin cleaned. She looked at it in satisfaction. "J-j-just the thing for Z-Z-Ziggy!"

Wandering over to the tack room, she rummaged around the bins and containers until she found a large vat of sheep fat. Flexing her scrawny, but still powerful arms, she hoisted the vat to her shoulder and carried into the stable to the limp skin.

"Ain't this n-n-nice," she talked to herself as she dipped into the gelatinous fat and scooped out a generous handful. With a powerful THWACK, she smacked the sheep fat against the hide and began to massage it in thoroughly. "Ziggy'll l-l-like this a h-h-heap better than them p-p-puny old f-f-furs he's used to," she continued, nodding her head in agreement with herself.

"W-w-why in a y-y-year or two, it w-w-won't smell bad a'tall!"