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Jay W. Duncan as a young man of about 19-20, while living at Cambridge, ID
had worked at a ranch at Brownlee (on the Idaho side of the Snake River). The ranch supplied Dad with a tall, black horse to ride while working there and I still have the above picture from that period. Dad stood a bit over 5 feet 8 inches but when seated on the big black horse named Midnight he presented an imposing figure. Dad told a favorite story about his time working at the Brownlee Ranch...
This story involved horses but did not involve "Dad's horse", Midnight. Ranch visitors on horseback would vie with each other to see who could ride the 5-6 miles from the ranch along Snake River up to the canyon rim, an elevation gain of over 2000 feet, in the shortest time often making bets on the outcome. When Dad went to work at the ranch this game changed. Dad had a reputation as a very strong hiker and on those weekends when Dad went home to Cambridge he simply walked the 20 miles.
The ranch owner noted that his visitors had stopped bragging about how fast they could get to the canyon rim. Seems that Dad had been 'out-walking' their fancy horses. So the ranch owner began offering a $50 prize to the horse owner that could beat Jay Duncan to the canyon rim. No one ever collected.
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