Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1876 — Badly Taken In. [ARTICLE]

Badly Taken In.

Many will remember the race whioh occurred at Colorado Springs during the holidays between Stone and. Crandall. Stone’s fleetness of foot was the pride and boast of his fellow-townsmen of Colorado Springs. They were ready and anxious to stake their all on his running. He published a challenge to anybody and everybody. Crandall, a Michigan runner with a talented pair of legs, and a fame as wide as the continent itself, heard of the challenge. He came to Colorado, hired out as a wood-chopper on the Divide, and in due time accepted Stone’s challenge. The sports of Colorado Springs said it didn’f lay in any wood-chopper’s legs to outrun their man Stone, ft was said that SB,OOO changed hands on the result. Well, the wood-chopper ran right away from his competitor, and the discomfiture of the sports was something fearful to contemplate. Crandall gave up his job of wood-chopping, and has been traveling about the Territory enjoying himself. Last week a man calling himscli Slade turned up in Pueblo. He arrived with a bull-train from Trinidad, and claimed to have come trom New Mexico. He commenced boasting about his fleetness, and said he could run away from anybody in Ihe Territories. This boast, of course, reached the ears of the Colorado Springs sports, who, seeing their opportunity to set even on late losses, hunted up Cyanall and pitted him against Slade. The race, as already known, came off at Pueblo a day or two since, and was witnessed by a thousand people. Crandall was backed by a big delegation of the sporting men or Colorado Springs. They shook their money in the faces of thejPuebloites, and covered bets of any sort. They told a few persons confidentially that Crandall could beat anybody—that he was the champion of the world. The sports of Pueblo, not liking the bantering and tantalizing manner of the Colorado Springs delegation, put up a thousand or two on Slade, just for luck and the credit of the town. Meanwhile the runners were quietIjrwortJhg tfjf an exctteffiefit MWch, when the time for the race arrived, had become intense, Crandall’s backers putting up money and jewelry by the hatful. The Colorado Springs delegation staked all the greenbacks, and then pat np several gold watches, one or two breast-pins and several finger-rings. The race was run — seventy-five yards—and Crandall came out two teet behind! The runners were scarcely seen again during the afternoon. That evening they boarded a train on the A. T. & 8. F. road, dropped into a seat together, and went away eastward, chuckling in their sleeves over the trick they haa played on the gudgeons of Southern Colorado. The man Slade was not Slade at all, but John ny Casal, a celebrated French Canadian runner, and an old friend of Crandall’s. The two had put up the job and divided the winnings, some $5,000 in money and a half-bushel or so of watches, breast-pins and finger-rings. Casal, alien Slade, had come in by the A. T. & S. F. Road and crossed over to Trinidad, and thence to Pueblo, to give plausibility to his claim of being a New Mexican. He is an oddlooking man, with humped shoulders nd crooked legs, and about forty-five years of age. He is a wonderful athlete. As he finished the race he threw a somersault and bounded off like an elastic ball. Crandall is a much younger man and is made of equally springy and elastic material. —Denver News.