THE CALL OF A DISTANT PAST 277 



WILKES,. the brilliant editor and proprietor of the 

 great New York sporting weekly of that era, had 

 noticed father's editorial work, and engaged him to 

 attend and report the Grand Circuit races, begin- 

 ning at Cleveland and running for some weeks down 

 through Buffalo, Rochester, Utica and other eastern 

 cities. Those were the halcyon days of harness- 

 horse racing in America. Fortunes were up in 

 purses, the attendance was enormous, the sport 

 royal, and an excitement and enthusiasm which can 

 now scarce be realized followed the great contests 

 of speed and endurance as the campaign progressed 

 to its apotheosis. I have heard it said that the 

 accounts of these memorable trotting meetings pub- 

 lished from week to week as DOBLE and MACE and 

 MARVIN and other celebrated drivers fought their 

 various battles, have not to this day been sur- 

 passed. As examples of descriptive writing, they 

 were so generally appreciated that Mr. WILKES im- 

 mediately offered the western writer the turf 

 editorship of the "Spirit of the Times." The prop- 

 osition v/as accepted, the old home in Iowa given 

 up, the live stock sold, and removal to New York 

 followed. While the salary was a liberal one, and the 

 work congenial enough, the idea of selling all his 

 time to someone else did not appeal specially to a 



