They have a wonderful curve over at St. Moritz known as the "Cresta Run," 1320 yards long and abounding in hair-raising thrills from start to finish. Hardly has the rider, lying prone on his steel-skeleton flyer, got under good headway before he comes to the "church leap." Here a swinging descent shoots him into a double compound curve where he must flash to the left and again to the right in letter S fashion, helped to be sure, by raised banks on either side as he needs them. The banks help, but it takes lightning combinations of wisdom, skill and strength to make the turns in safety for all that, nor does he have a chance for a long breath before he shoots at ever increasing speed into the "battledore" where the course turns almost at a right angle and shoots him on into the "shuttlecock" where he must negotiate another right angle. Then he must immediately take "stream corner" and be ready for his plunge into "the straight." From this again he has to take "Bulpett's corner." By this time he may be going seventy miles an hour, but "cresta leap" is before him, after which he has only to go up the steep hill which is supposed to arrest his speed at the finish. Yet even here his skill must be in full play, as riders have been known to go forty feet in air over the crest of the hill and take a fine plunge into the soft snow beyond. Indeed, the soft snow waits the venturesome rider at every turn of the famous St. Moritz course, and many there be who go to it before "church leap" is fairly negotiated, thus early in the game. The whole course, nearly a mile, is frequently made in a little over a minute and a quarter. All this is fine to see, without doubt, and finer still to do, but do you know, if I could have my choice and could see but one, I would choose to see that leviathan double-runner of a half-century ago swinging the curve at Captain Bill Tucker's corner, followed by that big wood-sled with the half of Ponkapoag's population on it, and hear the joyous Yankee shouts as they resounded all the way from the crest of the hill to George B.'s blacksmith shop. CHAPTER XXV PICKEREL FISHING