A long time ago in the Old Wild West, three Texas cowboys were about to be hung for cattle rustling.
The lynch mob brought the three men to a tree right at the edge of the Rio Grande, with the idea that when each man had died, they would cut the rope and his body would then drop into the river and drift out of sight.
The lynch mob put the first cowboy in the noose, but he was so sweaty and greasy that he slipped out, fell in the river and swam to freedom.
So, they tied the noose around the second cowboy’s head.
He was also really sweaty and greasy and he too slipped out of the rope, dropped into the river and got away.
The lynch mob were becoming really frustrated by now, as they dragged the third Texan to the scaffold.
Suddenly, he resisted and said, “Please! Would yaw’l tighten that noose a little bit? I can’t swim!”
Image used under a Collective Commons License from: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4063847
