CRESCEUS, 2:02»/4 



riages, brakes, runabouts, and the flotsam and jetsam 

 that ever hedge about a race meeting, for all this was 

 a horse meeting at which over ten thousand people 

 gathered to see the greatest trotter of all time make 

 one of his most heroic efforts. For two hours the 

 people were gathering and waiting somewhat impa- 

 tiently for the great event. Ever and anon the crowd, 

 being constantly augmented, arose to its feet and 

 breathed the magic word "Cresceus," and the cynosure 

 of all eyes was a big chestnut stallion, attired in all the 

 conventional trappings that make up the regalia of a 

 trotter. The horse quietly trots up and down the 

 stretch, and once in a while goes the entire length of 

 the course. Once he circles the track in 2:41, once in 

 2 :27J, and then he steps one mile in 2 :22), and he does 

 it with that same philosophic ease that may be noticed 

 about the family Dobbin as he wags along the road 

 to the camp-meeting. 



The wind is sweeping fiercely from the northwest 

 and down the back-stretch, and horsemen know that it 

 is blowing a gale, precluding in their minds all possi- 

 bility of the great horse clipping a fraction off his 

 record of 2 '.02^. The track, set in its picturesque sur- 

 roundings, is slow and dead, for it had rained the night 

 before, and while the work of the track superintendent 

 had smoothed out the wrinkles somewhat, it was hope- 

 lessly rough, cuppy and dead. \Mien all is ready 

 Cresceus ambles lazilv down to about one vard from 



151 



