Me and old Sam Holt got to waltzing around and around, which wasn’t a-tall pleasant, being as I’m barefooted and Sam ain’t. I seen Mrs. Wheeler and Art locked in mortal combat, and just then I hears Dirty Shirt Jones yelp—
“Heavy, heavy hangs over your head—”
I whirls just in time to see what’s coming, but I can’t escape. Dirty Shirt has turned the atmosphere loose. Them four he-sheep—four ungentlemanly woollies, with corkscrew horns, are buck-jumping across that stage, seeking what they may hit. I swung around to meet the attack, and I reckon the leading sheep hit him a dead center, ’cause I felt the shock plumb to me.
Maybe it hit Sam a little low, because it knocked all four of our feet off the floor, and the next in line picked us in the air and stood us on our heads.
I seen Wick Smith, braced against the edge of the stage, trying to pull his wife over the edge, the same of which is a invitation to a sheep, and the old ram accepted right on the spot. Mrs. Smith grunted audibly and shot into Wick’s arms. Scenery Sims starts to skip across the stage, but a ram outsmarted him, and I seen Scenery turn over gracefully in the air and shoot, regardless, with both barrels of that sawed-off shotgun.
Them load of shot hived up in the chandelier, the same of which cut off our visible supply of light.
I heard the crashing of glass, and I figures that the hallway is too crowded for some of the audience. I lays still, being wise, until the noise subsides, and the crowd has escaped. Then I moves slowly to my hands and knees. I feels a hand feeling of my legs, and then a hand taps gently on my horned cap.
“I—I thought,” whispers old Sam’s voice kinda quavering-like, “I—I thought they was all old ones, but a sheep’s a sheep to me.”
Bam! Something landed on my head, and I seen more bright lights than there is in a million dollars worth of skyrockets. Then things kinda clear up, and I hears old Sam saying to himself:
“Well, I killed one of the ⸺ things. If I go carefully⸺”