“Speakin’ o’ my third wife’s half brother,” Single broke out, at last.

“What kind o’ fambly was that?” interrupted the sour puncher.  “Thirds, an’ halfs, an’ things.  Sounds more like ’rithmetic than a fambly.”

“It was harder’n ’rithmetic,” Single replied darkly.  “This here half brother o’ my wife’s was a Cognowaga” (Caughnawaga).

“Gee, what a fambly!” groaned the other, but Single did not heed him.

“An’ his name was Sam Sharp,” Single went on. “’Course that wasn’t his real name.  He was a sportin’ gent, an’ that was his sportin’ name.  He was one o’ them all-round fellers.  Run!  Say, he c’d make a jack-rabbit look like a fly in a tub o’ butter.  He c’d jump higher’n this here roof, an’ vault twic’t as high.  An’ them big shots an’ weights that they put—­I’d hate t’ tell you how far he c’d put ’em.  You wouldn’t b’lieve me.”

“We don’t b’lieve you, anyhow,” muttered one of the boys, but Single didn’t seem to hear.  He was wrapped up in his story.

“He’d throw th’ discus from here down t’ th’ corral.”

“What’s a discus?” asked a puncher.

“It doesn’t matter, but he c’d throw it,” said Single.  “An’ he was champeen of America; not only that, but champeen of th’ whole world.”

Now, it didn’t make much difference whether Single’s story was true or not.  One didn’t have to believe it to enjoy it.  He aimed to astonish, rather than to be truthful.  But these statements were too much for the imagination of his hearers—­or rather for their lack of it.  He was greeted by a chorus of hoots and yells of disbelief, that developed into a volley of boots and spurs and cans and anything that could be thrown, and he was fairly driven from the room.

And the odd part of it was that Single was only a little ahead of his time.  For there was an Indian boy living then who afterwards did things as hard to believe, so marvelous that I must tell about him.

His name is Jim Thorpe, and he is a Sac and Fox Indian.  His running record for one hundred yards is ten seconds.  For one hundred and twenty yards, with three-feet-six-inch hurdles, fifteen seconds; running broad jump, over twenty-three feet; running high jump, over six feet.  He put a sixteen-pound shot over forty-three feet, and a fifty-six pound weight in the neighborhood of twenty-eight feet, and made a pole-vault of over twelve feet.  He ran a half-mile and a mile at great speed.

When the Olympian Games were held in Sweden, and all the champion athletes of the world took part, it was the ambition of each to win one event, or even to run one-two-three in it.  There were five events in the Pentathlon and ten in the Decathlon. Jim Thorpe won them all.

He won the all-round championship of America a couple of times, a feat paled by those he accomplished in the Olympian Games.  He is the greatest football player that ever lived, and one of the greatest Major League baseball players, drawing a large salary from one of the clubs, and playing yet.  And if you don’t believe me, all you have to do is to look at the sporting-records.