"What about it, Jack?" Kit Parsons asked.

"I'll wrastle him."

"He's different from anything you've gone up against. Jo Kelsy saw him lift a whiskey barrel and let a feller drink out of the bung hole one day when he was in the store."

"The Lord's truth," Jo answered solemnly.

"And Buck Thompson says he histed a chicken coop that weighed five or six hundred pounds and set her down on the other side of the yard, nobody lendin' a hand."

"The Lord's truth," Buck answered.

"And Ole Bar says they was having some sort of a contest down at the mill when he first come here—some sort of a stone-moving tussle—and Abe Lincoln let them strap him like a hoss and moved a thousand pounds. Hey, Ole Bar?"

"I ain't sayin' nothin', only I seen it done."

"I can whip any man on Sangamon River." It was Armstrong who spoke.