There was, in this hinterland stretch, a friendly and constant rivalry among the natives and other old residents in the matter of stock raising. Horses, cattle, pigs, chickens, even a very few sheep were bred for generations along lines which their divers owners had laid out—lines which those owners fervently believed must some day produce perfection.
Each owner or group of owners had his own special ideas as to the best way to produce this super-stock result. The local stock shows formed the only means of proving or disproving the excellence of the varied theories. Hence these shows were looked upon as barnyard supreme courts.
Mr. Glure had begun his career in the neighborhood with a laudable aim of excelling everybody else in everything. He had gone, heart and soul, into stock producin
