“Can I run? Well, I should say I could. Why, look ‘ere, Dan Spencer, jist you write to Ed Reimond back in Indiana, and ask him ‘bout the greatest foot-race ever pulled off on the banks of the Wabash. Hully gee, but in them days I had wings when there was a sprintin’ match on the boards. Course I hain’t run for many a year. I know how, though, bet yer life I do. Why, what’s the matter with you anyway, Dan? What are you snickerin’ that way for? Maybe you don’t believe I used to be a record breaker? Who can beat me? You say Bill Mounce can? Not on yer life. Mounce, you can’t touch one side o’ me on a foot-race—no, sirree.” “No use gettin’ hostile, but I jist heerd him say he could,” rejoined Dan, grinning aggravatingly. “Look ‘ere, Dan,” said the judge, with evident irritation, “our friend Mounce here may be a good blacksmith—guess he is—but he has n’t the p’ints for good speed. Now, I have, bet yer life I have; you jist ask Louis Boehler.” The result of this conversation was a foot-race at four o’clock that afternoon, between the judge and the blacksmith, down in the valley of the Crooked Creek. From the enthusiasm of the spectators one might well have mistaken the affair for a Derby day race. Bill Mounce was even more unfavorably proportioned for a sprinter than was Lynn. Mounce was short and stocky, and tipped the scales at 225 pounds; Lynn at 175 pounds. Judge Lynn, barring his great stomach, his little toy balloon-shaped face, pipestem legs, and a few other defective points, might possibly have possessed some of the characteristics of speed. There were fully two hundred spectators lined up to see the race. These were divided about evenly between the farmers and cattlemen. The cowboys began betting on Lynn. Even Dan Spencer “hedged” and then doubled. The farmers picked on Mounce as the winner, and the price for their wheat and barley was accordingly up for all takers. When all was in readiness, the horse-shoer and the legal servant clasped hands and bent well over, each with an extended foot on the line. At the crack of a revolver away they sped, running, side by side, like two ice-wagons drawn by oxen—but stampeded. It must not be supposed this race was any “ten second” affair. The timekeeper needed no stop-watch. Any old-fashioned clock, with wooden wheels, could have kept track of the seconds that passed in that hundred yard dash. Some said that the affair reminded them of a geological description of the movement of the glaciers. In time the race was ended, however—the blacksmith winning by about two feet. Mounce was greeted with huzzas. Lynn was broken-hearted—got drunk immediately and was hauled home in a farmer’s wagon. This race was but a preliminary to greater things. It was simply a practice run compared with another sprinting contest between Mounce and Lynn, which took place some two weeks later—a contest still memorable in the annals of foot-racing in the Southwest.