THE CASE OF THE WATERMELON PATCH MYSTERY; CPATER THREE: THE ATTACK OF THE HEADLESS COWBOY (PART 3 OF 14)

All at once Drover and I were in huge trouble. We were about to be attacked by a headless cowboy.

Well, you know me. When I'm confronted by something as spooky as a headless cowboy, I don't just sit there looking simple. I run.

Yes sir, we ran, digging several trenches in the ground as we, uh, moved our camp to safer ground, so to speak. Firing barks and squeaks over our shoulders, we raced down the hill toward the house and went flying over the fence.

Lucky for us, Sally May was out in the yard hanging up clothes on the line. We headed straight for her and took refuge behind her legs. Not so lucky for us, she got her legs tangled up in our quivering bodies and fell into the clothes basket.

But getting screamed at by Sally May was the least of our worries. The headless cowboy had followed us into the yard!

It gets worse from here. Don't read any more unless you are certified tough and unscarable. No kidding.

Let me try to sort it all out. Things were happening so fast that it was hard to keep them straight.

Sally May fell into the clothes basket, which wasn't entirely my fault. Or, to approach it from another direction, it wasn't my fault at all. She slipped and fell into the basket of clothes. It could have happened to anyone.

It was just one of those things.

But guess who got the blame for it?

"Hank, get away from my clean clothes!" At this point in the drama, Sally May was still unaware that she and Drover and I were about to be attacked by the headless cowboy. He had just come through the yard gate. I could see him plain as day, and I was barking with all my heart and soul.

Pretty scary, huh? Well, it got worse. Just then Drover hopped into her lap and one of the sheets that had been flapping in the wind wrapped around the upper part of her body.

Suddenly she was wrestling with the wet sheet and trying to keep Drover from crawling into her shirt, which left me alone to face the attack of the headless cowboy, who was now only 10 feet away and closing fast.

I stood my ground and gave him the whole 9 yards of heavy duty barking and threatening gestures. Hey, my master's wife was ...

Holy smokes, that headless cowboy had an eye peeking out from inside his shirt! Right about where his chest should have been.

This is no exaggeration. I saw it. I'll swear under oath that I saw it.

I jumped into Sally May's lap and somehow the clothespins went flying in all directions and the wet sheet settled on top of the three of us.

While this was going on under the sheet, I could hear the headless cowboy growling and snarling outside. I knew that it was only a matter of time until ... well, I hated to imagine what was ahead.

It was all up to Sally May now. If she was as tough as I thought, she would whip the headless cowboy and we'd be saved. If she didn't, we were all finished.

There wasn't a lot I could do to help her in this desperate struggle, but when her face appeared amid the folds and flappings of the sheet, I seized the opportunity to give her a lick on the face.

It seemed the right and proper thing to do under the circumstances, but maybe it wasn't. Anyway, she took it wrong.

Her eyes almost bugged out of her head, and she sprouted fangs where her nice white teeth used to be, and she screeched at me.

"Get out of my clothes basket, you're ruining my wash!" OK, licking her had been a sudden impulse and maybe it was wrong, but that didn't mean she needed to screech.

Hey, dogs have feelings too.

I was just trying to help.

But suddenly all the events under the sheet were suddenly exposed to the light of day, because just then, the headless cowboy seized the sheet and jerked it away.

We froze.

There he was.

NEXT CHAPTER: Guess who the headless cowboy turns out to be.