"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.
Whitey was greatly disappointed when Single was driven out of the bunk house. He wanted to hear the rest of that story about the third wife's half brother. So Whitey went after Single, and tried to coax him to come back.
And the other punchers were sorry that they had been so hasty, for they wanted to see how far Single's imagination would carry him.
Whitey had heard an old yarn about a parrot in a mining camp. A magician was giving a performance at the camp, and after every trick the miners would say, "I wonder what he's going to do next?" One of them was smoking, a spark fell in a keg of powder, and blew the camp away from that place. The parrot landed a quarter of a mile off, most of his feathers gone, his cage was a wreck. And, peering out, he asked, "I wonder what he's going to do next?"
That was the way it was with those cowpunchers, and they joined Whitey, and finally smoothed over Single's feelings, and coaxed him to continue his story—which he wanted to do, anyway.