Almost as soon as the shot landed, and before the mingled applause and good-natured chaffing were over, he left them with a parting joke, and disappeared through the door, going back to his waiting furnace. This was my first sight of Angus MacLeod. I looked him up a few days later, got acquainted easily, and in fact hit it off right well with him from the beginning. I was just enough older for him to look up to me a bit in other matters beside athletics, and on this last subject he gave me credit for possessing all the knowledge in the market. I learned that he had been in this country some four years, that he lived with an uncle, one of the pillars of a Scotch Presbyterian church, and that Angus was himself a churchman, devout and regular in his habits. He had taken to athletics, with no other preparation than the school-boy sports of old Aberdeen, making a specialty of the "shot-put" and "hammer-throw." This last was his favorite sport, and by dint of regular practice in an open lot back of his house he was able to show about ninety feet as a best performance. He improved this at once under my instruction, working up to a regular hundred feet in a couple of weeks. This pleased him very much, and he took kindly to my suggestion that he enter some open competition, and see what he could do in a contest. Indeed, he was quite confident that he could give a good showing, making much of the fact that the MacLeods had been noted for their strength for centuries. Many stories he told me of old John M'Dhoil-vic-Huishdon, from whom he claimed to have descended. This John was the head of the MacLeods of Lewis. He lived in the days of James VI., and, though a man of small stature, was of matchless strength. Some of the tales, I confess, I should have doubted, had not Angus been both a Scotchman and a church member of good standing. It was quite easy for us to choose an opportunity for Mac's début, as there were some very convenient sports only a few weeks ahead. These games, Scotch and otherwise, were the principal attraction at an annual excursion of Caledonian societies, comprising all those within a radius of one hundred miles of Boston. Purses were small, but the enthusiasm great; and many a canny Scot, under the influence of a "wee drappie," would back an impossible winner for all his pockets might hold. These were the good old days of Duncan Ross and Captain Daily, and at one of these Caledonian excursions there afterward occurred that never-to-be-forgotten wrestling bout on the deck of a boat moored in the lake. So fierce was the struggle that the men worked overboard, and neither being willing to break hold, they were well filled with water, and in fact half-drowned before they separated.