DKIVING JAKE. 405 



to drive her there as fast as I can ; I will signify my in- 

 tention of the time T intend to drive when I come by you. 



PRECEPTOR. I would advise you to keep her a little 

 within her rate, unless you find that she is working very 

 kindly, when you can venture to push her as fast as you 

 can. Should she break, handle her very gently. Bravely 

 done ! She is tremendous in her stride, and if I had not 

 had the watch in my hand, I would have greatly underrated 

 her. She went down the stretch in thirty-eight seconds, 

 when I did not think she was going any inside of a forty 

 gait. While Con is walking her, we will go across and 

 try to find the length of her stride. I have a tape line, as 

 pacing is only a rough way of guessing, at the best. 



PUPIL. I am glad she pleased you, and she certainly 

 went better than I expected. She went very evenly, and 

 luckily did not break until I got by the half-mile pole. I 

 had been urging her for the last hundred yards, and when 

 she did leave her feet, she lost a good deal of time, though 

 she was not excited, and did not try to run. 



PRECEPTOR. Here are strides that are very distinct 

 nineteen feet to a hundred-pound wagon is some stretch- 

 ing. Take notice how near they are of a length, not six 

 inches variation amongst them all; and there is another 

 thing I like to see, the regularity in the spaces between 

 each footprint. This is enough to convince any one that 

 the body of the trotter is in the air part of the time, as 

 the eighteen-hand Magog could not be stretched a great 

 deal over half the distance. 



PUPIL. The stretching would require an India-rubber 

 quadruped, or to be something like the harness I heard 

 an old man tell about : he was taking the tanner to task 

 for not making better leather, and to illustrate it, said, 

 that he made a pair of traces of the last side he had 

 tanned, and on a wet, thawing day he went to the woods 

 a quarter of a mile distant to haul up a log. He hitched 



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