THE DEMON TROTTER, 59 



Thome's wheel and the pole. Gradually he went to his 

 girth, then to his throat-latch, at the quarter, exactly even, 

 in 32^4, at the half in 1 105! Think of it! over a slow 

 track, and this demon trotter Clingstone at his ease. 

 Thome's great heart broke. He had made the supreme 

 effort, and it was unavailing. No horse he had yet tried 

 with such a desperate brush had failed to succumb. Now 

 he had met something above ordinances — a horse appar- 

 ently subject to no law that governs flesh and blood ; a 

 2 :io clip seems an idle pastime. So evident was this that 

 Thorne and Turner, a great horse and great driver, 

 yielded in despair to fate and the demon trotter. De- 

 jected and sorrowful they finished the journey. My sym- 

 pathy went out to Thorne as to a human being in distress. 

 The proud and sensitive equine face betrayed the most 

 poignant sorrow. His high ambition to be king ; inherited 

 from a proud ancestry, has been relentlessly crushed ; de- 

 feat had come to check his hot blood in its victorious 

 flood. Woe is Thorne! Woe is the house of Turner. 

 Woe is me, for I tingled in every fibre with hope for his 

 victory, the victory of a kingly horse. The sight of other 

 trotters became hateful, the mechanical noting of their 

 positions a burdensome task. I feel that I never want to 

 see another race. I abandon the journey and return to 

 the wilds of Minnesota. 



Third Heat. — Turner said to the judges : "If I nod 

 for the word, give it to me." This was a confession that 

 he yielded to the "machine." Thorne is a race-horse, 

 but Clingstone is a machine which it seems hopeless to 

 contend with. Turner had proved him, to his entire sat- 

 isfaction, perfect in all his points — every joint and lever 

 in unison with a controlling intelligence, quiet, calm, cold ; 

 not a horse to excite sympathy or enthusiasm, but a fate 



