“What!” he cried, “done that three times? Who rode him?” “Why, hang it,” I cried, impatiently, “nobody rode him! I told you they quit that before I was born. And Mattie Hunter and Bonesetter—they were great racers. Mattie Hunter was a little mare that was one of the Big Four. Then there came later old Hal Pointer—the greatest race horse of them all. Why, he had a record of 2:04½ in a race—” “Nearly two minutes in a race! Phew!” he cried, blowing vigorously through his long, thin, gray whiskers. “Phew! What a lie!” and something flew out of his dry lips and rattled on the rocks. I jumped back in astonishment. “Excuse me,” he said, “them’s three of my front teeth—they’ve been dry for sixty years and hanging loose in the jaw bone, like. I forgot myself and blew too hard—” He caught at his eye just in time and put that back: “But go on, I never heard anything as interestin’ as them Hals.” But I had forgotten the story, and was watching him. Never had such an uncanny feeling come over me. I reached around under the rock for the bottle. “I got all of that at first,” he said. “Now, look here—you go right on with that story and don’t you move or something might happen to you.” I tried to laugh, but the cold sweat stood on my face. I shook, trembling, and looked to see how far it was to the water. “Go on.” He glared. “Go on, or I’ll throw one of my eyes at you. Tell me the rest.” “I—ah—ah—oh; well, there was a Brown Hal, the champion sire of his day, and he’s still living. He has more 2:10 race records to the credit of his get than any horse living or dead. Here is his 2:10 list.” I rattled along, trying to brace up and talk fast enough to think of something else except the uncanny thing before me. “Let me see: Star Pointer, Hal Dillard, Star Hal, Hal Chaffin, Elastic Pointer, Hal Braden, New Richmond, Storm, Brown Heels, Laurel and Silver Hal, and he sired the dam of—” “That’s a damn lie!” he snorted; “no hoss could ’a’ done that!” “Pardon me, Colonel,” I said, “and if you’ll excuse me a minute I’ll step up town and fetch a little more of that—.” “Set down,” he said, “and go on with your lies.” It was over eighty good feet to the water over that bluff, but for a moment I thought I’d try it. “Look! Look!” he cried, pointing down the Nashville pike, way below us—“what’s that going along there without hosses?” “That’s a hoss-scarer,” I said, “an automobile—a gas buggy—run without horses. That crowd have run out from Nashville in perhaps about two hours. That blue line of smoke,” I said, “away off yonder is the ten o’clock express. It makes the run in an hour and—”