The boys goggled wisely at each other and waited. Kelsey finished his conversation with Clark and came back past the bar.
“That shore was awful bad about Jim Wheeler, wasn’t it?” said Dan Leach.
The sheriff stopped beside the bar.
“It shore was,” he said emphatically. “That horse must ’a’ dragged him quite a ways.”
“It was like thish,” explained Lonnie thickly.
He moved to the left side of Kelsey, while Nebrasky stepped back, taking his position at Kelsey’s right.
“Me and Hozie Wheeler,” said Lonnie, “was ridin’—let ’er go, Nebrasky!”
And before the unsuspecting sheriff knew what was happening he had been grasped by arms and legs and was starting to imitate a Ferris wheel.
Exerting all their strength, the two drunken cowboys managed to swing Kelsey up to where his feet were almost pointing at the ceiling—but there they stuck. Their leverage was gone. Kelsey’s six-shooter fell from his holster, and his watch fell the full length of the chain, striking Kelsey on the chin.
Overbalanced, the two cowboys started staggering backward, stumbled into a card-table and went down with a crash, letting the struggling Kelsey drop squarely on the top of his head.