MIKE FLOYD. 61 



ties, while walking along a lonely back road, I 

 stumbled on one man, two boys and two horses. I 

 knew the man by sight. His name was Mike Floyd. 

 Locally he was known as a sporting character and a 

 rough and tumble fighter. He was by no means a 

 desirable acquaintance after he had had a "drop or 

 two." At such times nothing pleased him more than an 

 opportunity to pick a quarrel with some one. In his 

 younger days this man Floyd had been mixed up in a 

 shooting fray and before he was about again the doc- 

 tors had amputated one of his arms below the elbow. 

 In after life this stub of an arm was his defence in 

 whatever little differences he might have with the 

 flotsam and jetsam of the public that crossed his path. 

 Ducking his head he would swing half round and with 

 the stub of an arm ram his opponent. The only way 

 to escape a knockout was to side-step, and as Floyd 

 was as quick as a flash, it took a very clever man to 

 evade him. 



The pride of Mike Floyd's life was a little chestnut 

 mare named Maud. She was as pretty as a picture 

 and could out run any horse in that county at any dis- 

 tance up to a half mile. She had been to Ottawa, 

 Kingston and Prescott, and I have been told that she 

 had also been over to the 'burg, the local name for Og- 

 densburg, and so far as I could learn, she had never 

 been beaten. Floyd, when he was at home, which 

 was very seldom, lived on a farm near a place called 

 Bishop's Mills, and the fame of Maud was so well 

 established in all that section that it was as much as a 

 man's life was worth to even hint at some one getting 

 a horse that could lower her colors. Horse after horse 

 had been brought in with that object in view, but 

 Maud still remained the pride of the county. 



