If there be any soil where hope absolutely runs riot it is in the breast of a golfer. The fond mother who cozens herself into the faith that her boy will some day be President of the United States builds on the same foundation as the duffer who enters a competition in which he is outclassed.

Personally I can see no reason why I shall not some day win the international golf championship, and I have strong expectations of doing so, but know perfectly well that I will not. It is a peculiar but delightful complication of mind.

Carter had the best qualifying score, making the round in a consistent eighty. Marshall was second with an eighty-two, Boyd and LaHume were tied with eighty-four each, and I came in fifth with one more. Chilvers, Pepper, and Thomas also qualified, but the cup should lie among the first five.

Candour compels me to admit that on form it should come to a struggle between Carter and Marshall; but if I get into the finals with either of these gentlemen I shall play with confidence of winning.

A most astounding thing has happened! If I were incorporating these events in a narrative or a novel I presume I would reserve the statement I am about to make until the finish, so as to form an effective climax—and on reflection I have decided to do so in these notes. So I will begin at the beginning.

The second day after our visit to Bishop's, Miss Lawrence called me aside on the veranda, and I could see that some great secret had possession of her.

"I wish to ask a favour of you, Mr. Smith," she said, after beating about the brush for a minute.

"Anything at my command is yours," I said.

"I have come to you," she said, "because I know that you are one of the members of the club who can keep a secret. Not that this is any tremendous affair," she added, a blush faintly touching her cheek, "but I don't care to have everybody know it."

I assured her that wild horses could not drag from me any confidence reposed.

"I want to borrow some of your clubs," she faltered.

"My clubs?"

"Yes; some old ones which you do not use regularly."

"You may have any or all the clubs I have," I assured her. "When do you wish them?"

"Right now."

She was silent a moment, and I was too mystified to frame any comment.

"I am going to tell you all about it," she impulsively declared, laying her little hand on my arm. "I want them for Mr. Wallace!"

"Mr. Wallace?" I repeated. At that instant I could not think whom she meant.

"Mr. Bishop's assistant."

"Oh, yes!" I exclaimed. By a mighty effort I kept from smiling. It was the first time I had heard a "hired man" called an "assistant," and I have heard them called many names.

"Do you remember that at the dinner I said Mr. Wallace had promised to teach me the St. Andrews swing?" she asked, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Yes."

"I took my first lesson yesterday afternoon. Miss Ross and I went over to Mr. Bishop's after dinner, as we arranged we should during the dance. We put our clubs in my auto when no one was looking, and went by a roundabout way to the big sheep pasture to the east of the farmhouse. Do you know where it is?"

"Perfectly."

"It was still half an hour from sunset, and Mr. Wallace was there waiting for us. Mr. Smith," clasping her hands, "you should see that gentleman play golf!"

"I had an idea he could play from the moment he lofted your sliced ball over the fence that afternoon," I said.

"Can you go with us?" she asked suddenly. "Miss Ross and I promised Mr. Wallace we would come over this afternoon an I bring a set of men's clubs with us, and it would be just splendid for you to go with us. Will you go, Mr. Smith?"

I assured her it would be a pleasure. At that moment Miss Harding appeared, and we quickly decided to let her into the secret.

"Mr. Wallace said he would arrange with Mr. Bishop to get away from his work an hour or so any time we came over this afternoon," explained Miss Lawrence, "so there will be no deception on his part."

"Oh, you should see him drive!" exclaimed Miss Ross, raising her eyes as if following a ball which was travelling an enormous distance. "And he did not dare hit them hard for fear of breaking my club. It was perfectly lovely!"



"And approach!" added Miss Lawrence.

"And putt!" declared Miss Ross. "It was grand!"

"Let us see this paragon of all the golfing virtues without delay," laughed Miss Harding, and half an hour later our automobile stopped in front of the Bishop house.

Wallace must have been on the outlook for us, since he appeared directly. He seemed a bit surprised to see me, but greeted us pleasantly.

"Miss Lawrence and Miss Ross were so kind as to praise shots I made yesterday," he explained, "but, as Mr. Smith will understand, the good ones were more or less lucky, for it is long since I have had a club in my hand. However, I will do the best I can to illustrate the typical Scottish swings, as I execute them, but please do not expect too much."

We ran the auto into the sheep pasture, and I presume it was the first invasion of those haunts by this modern vehicle. At least the sheep seemed to so regard it, and ran bleating in every direction. It is an ideal spot for an exhibition of the long game, and Bishop has had many offers from golf clubs seeking a location for links. That farmer gentleman appeared shortly after we arrived at the crest of a gentle hill.

"No trespassin' on these here premises!" he grinned.

"How are ye, everybody? Miss Lawrence tells me that my man Wallace, here, is a crackerjack drivin' one of them golf balls. You'd ought to see him drive a team when he first come here. Took him two weeks to learn the difference between 'gee' and 'haw,' and to tell the 'nigh' from the 'off' boss, but I suppose drivin' a golf ball is a sight easier. But I won't bother ye. I'll just stand here and watch. Perhaps I might learn somethin'."

It was a warm afternoon and Wallace laid aside his thin jacket. He was dressed in a tennis suit which fitted him perfectly. Bishop called me aside.

"That chap has two or three trunks full of all kinds of clothes," he said in a whisper, "but this is the first time I ever saw this one. What do you call it?"

"That's a tennis suit," I said.

"Tennis!" he grunted. "That's worse than golf, isn't it, Jack?"

I laughed, and then we turned our attention to the young Scotchman.

The moment he grasped my driver and swung it with an easy but powerful wrist movement I knew he was an expert. You can almost pick the good golfer by the way he takes a club from a bag. His skill is shown in his manner of teeing a ball, and no duffer ever "addressed" the sphere or "waggled" his club so as to deceive those who know the game.

Wallace did not tee the ball on any raised inequality of the turf, but simply placed it on a smooth spot, such as one would select as the average brassie lie. If I had any lingering doubt as to his ability, this one preliminary act dispelled it.

Now that I calmly recall this scene in that sheep pasture, its dramatic grotesqueness rather appeals to me. Here were three young ladies, all of them pretty, all wealthy and holding high social positions, watching with bated breath a farmhand of unknown birth in the act of striking a golf ball. Surely golf is the great leveller! Perhaps it is the hope of the ultimate democracy; the germ of the ideal brotherhood of man.

I presume Bishop was thinking that Wallace would better be employed in running a mowing machine.

"The Scotch method of making a full drive," said Wallace, facing his interested little audience, and speaking with more enthusiasm than was his wont, "or, if you prefer it, the St. Andrews style, is distinguished from most types by what might be termed its exaggerated freedom. It is a full, free swing with an abandoned follow through. It probably comes from the confidence which has been handed down from generations of golf-playing people. The Scotch are a conservative and deliberate people in most things, but the way they seem to hit a golf ball gives to most observers the impression of carelessness and lack of considered effort. That, I should say," he concluded, with a droll smile, "is enough for the preacher."



I felt mortally certain Wallace would make a failure of that first shot, and he told me later he was rather nervous, but he took no unnecessary chances.

He used a three-quarter swing—at least so it appeared to me—such a one I should employ to drive a low ball about one hundred and fifty yards. He seemed to put no effort into it, but the result proved there was not an ounce of misapplied energy. It all seemed unstudied, but I knew that every muscle and sinew of his lithe and well-proportioned body was working to the end that the face of his club should not swerve by one hair's breadth from the course he had planned for it.

It was the ball which we less-favoured golfers dream shall some day be ours to command; the ball which starts low, rises in a concave curve, and ends its trajectory in a slight slant to the left—the low, hooked ball. It was not a phenomenally long drive; about two hundred yards, I should say, but for the apparent effort expended I have never seen a more perfect shot.

"Why in thunder don't you hit it hard, Wallace?" demanded Bishop. "Soak it, man, soak it! That was only a love tap."

I would rather have stood in the shoes of that "hired man," and listened to the comments of those three girls, than to rival the eloquence of Demosthenes, and withstand the surges of the applause of admiring thousands.

"Let me drive two or three easy ones, Mr. Bishop," Wallace said, placing another ball on the turf, "and then I will press a bit, and see if I have lost the feel of a full swing."

It was a wonderful exhibition of clean, long driving. He teed a dozen balls, and I doubt if one of them fell fifteen yards outside the line of the lone walnut tree which had been selected as the target. The ground was fairly level, and Mr. Bishop and I paced the distance to the outer ball. We agreed that it was about two hundred and forty yards from the point driven, and seven of the twelve balls were found within a radius of fifteen yards. In fact all of them would have been on or near the edge of a large putting green.

I have seen longer driving, but nothing equalling it in accuracy or consistency.

"It is very much better than I had expectation of doing," said Wallace. "That is a well-balanced club of yours, Mr. Smith, but a bit too short and whippy for me."

He good-naturedly consented to try lofting and approaching shots. On the start he was a little unsteady, due probably to lack of familiarity with my clubs, which are made to conform with some of my pet hobbies. After a few minutes' practise he got the hang of them and did really brilliant work.

With a mashie at one hundred and twenty yards he dropped ball after ball within a short distance of a stake which served to indicate a cup. He picked them clean from the turf, lofting them with that back-spin which causes them to drop almost dead. It was the golf I have always claimed to be within the range of possibility, but I never hoped to see it executed. Even Bishop was impressed with the skill displayed by his employee, and as the balls soared true from his club, like quoits from the hand of a sturdy expert, the farmer grinned his appreciation.

"I don't know much about this here game, Jack," he said, as Wallace rejoined us, "but it looks to me as if this man of mine has you Woodvale fellows skinned a mile. Tell you what I'll do! I'll back him for ten dollars against any man you've got."

"I am not eligible to play in Woodvale," observed Wallace, a peculiar smile hovering on his lips, "so it is useless to discuss that."

"You shall play as my guest," declared Miss Lawrence. "I have a perfect right to—"

"I should be glad to extend that courtesy to Mr. Wallace at any time," I interrupted, fearing that she might say something which would be misconstrued.

"I thank both of you, but it is out of the question," said Wallace with quiet dignity, and Miss Harding with her usual tact changed the topic by asking Wallace to illustrate a certain point relating to the short approach shot.

On our way back to the auto I walked with Mr. Bishop, and of a sudden a thought occurred to me.

"I am in an important competition for a trophy presented to the club by Mr. Harding," I explained, "and I wish you to do me a favour."

"What kind of a favour?"

"If I can arrange with Wallace to give me a few lessons in driving and approaching, will you have any objections? It would put some extra money in his pocket."

"Not after he is through with his work," Bishop said, hesitating a moment. "But I can't have you folks takin' up his time as a regular thing when he should be out in the field. This thing to-day is all right enough, and I'm glad to accommodate Miss Lawrence and the rest of ye, but of course, as you know, Jack, it breaks up his day's work, and this is a busy season on a farm like this. But as a rule he is through his chores at half-past six, and there's lots of sunlight after that."

I managed to get Wallace aside before we left the farmhouse. I told him of the club competition and of my desire to win the Harding trophy.

"Mr. Bishop tells me your time is your own after half-past six in the evening," I said. "Would you be willing to give me a few lessons after that hour? I will bring clubs and balls and meet you where we were this afternoon."

"I will tell you anything I know, Mr. Smith," he said, "but I fear I shall prove a poor instructor."

"I shall expect to pay for your time, Mr. Wallace, and if you can improve my drive you will find it worth your while," I said, glad of a chance to do something in an honourable way for a chap who certainly has not been favoured with his share of good fortune.

"If I accept pay I will become a professional golfer, will I not, Mr. Smith?" he asked, and for the life of me I did not know what to say.

"I would be willing to pay you five dollars a lesson," I said, ignoring his question, trusting that the figure named would outweigh scruples, if he really had any.

"It is more than I would take, though I thank you for the offer," he said. "I do not doubt that golf is an honourable profession—in fact I know it is—but for reasons which will not interest you I prefer to maintain my amateur standing. It will be a pleasure to play with you, sir, and to help your game if I can, but I would rather not accept money."

"Very well," I said, "I'll find some other way to repay you. Suppose I take the first lesson to-morrow evening?"

"To-morrow evening at half after six o'clock," he said, and we shook hands in parting to bind the agreement.

I had already formed a plan by which I could even matters without the direct passing of money. It strikes me as odd that this farmhand should object to becoming a professional golfer, but it tends to prove the accuracy of my original opinion that he is some college chap, probably of good family, who is at the end of his resources.

We had no sooner started from Bishop's than Miss Lawrence turned her batteries on me.

"You think you are very sly, do you not, Mr. Smith?" she began.

"In what way, Miss Lawrence?"

"You think to steal my golf instructor from me," she declared. "That is just like a man; they are the meanest, most selfish things ever created."

"Listen to me—"

"I did listen to you," declared that young lady with a triumphant laugh. "I did listen to you, and I have sharp ears. You are to have your first exclusive lesson to-morrow evening. I make the discovery that Mr. Wallace knows more of golf than all of you Woodvale boys together, and then you seek to monopolise his skill. That's what he did, girls, and he dare not deny it! What do you think of him?"

"Monster!" laughed Miss Harding, our fair chauffeuse on this return trip, raising her eyes for an instant to mine.

"Ingrate!" hissed Miss Ross, leaning forward from the tonneau.

"What shall we do with him?" demanded Miss Lawrence.

"Make him take us with him!" they chorused, and I assured them that nothing would give me more pleasure.

And thus it happened that Wallace acquired four pupils instead of one, and for three successive evenings we had a jolly time in the old sheep pasture taking our lessons from this most remarkable "hired man." We had to let Mr. Harding into the secret the second evening, but he promised not to "butt in" to our class, so he and Bishop sat on a side hill and smoked and laughed and seemed to enjoy the exhibition hugely.

These little excursions to the old sheep pasture excited increasing curiosity in the club. I enjoyed them immensely, since it gave me a chance to walk slowly home with Miss Harding.

After the first visit we discarded the auto, since its use threatened too much publicity. There was no real reason for keeping the affair a secret, except that it is a pleasure to hold an interest in a mystery, and I think most of us will confess to this harmless weakness. In addition I was steadily improving my short game, which has been my great handicap when pitted against Carter.

And besides, as I have noted, I enjoyed the companionship of Miss Harding—and, of course, that of the others of our little group.

I am of the opinion that LaHume followed and spied upon us on the occasion of our second trip, and very likely on the succeeding one. I am sure I saw someone raise his head above a scrubby knoll to the south, and am reasonably certain I recognised LaHume's gray cap. He was not about the club that evening until after our return, and the same thing happened on the following evening. His manner led me to believe he knew more than he cared to tell. He was sullen almost to the point of insolence.

After having been ignored once or twice by Miss Lawrence, LaHume left our little group on the veranda and pulled a chair to the side of Carter, who was reading his evening paper. It is not safe to interrupt Carter while thus engaged, but after LaHume said a few words the other laid aside the paper and listened intently. They talked for some time, and in view of what happened later I have an idea of the subject of their conversation.

Carter called me aside the next evening.

"I understand," he said, "that you have retained the services of a private golf tutor."

"Who told you that?" I was thunderstruck.

"Never mind who told me," laughed Carter. "Trying to steal a march on the rest of us, eh? Foxy old Smith; foxy old Smith!"

There was nothing I cared to say, and I said it.

"Is he any good?" Carter asked.

"Is who any good?" I parried.

"Wallace, of course. Oh, I know all about it. You, Miss Lawrence, Miss Ross, and Miss Harding have been taking lessons from Wallace for several evenings over in Bishop's sheep pasture. What I wish to know is this: does this Scotch chap of Bishop's really know anything about the game, or are the girls carried away with him because he is a handsome dog who has seen better days and is now playing in bad luck?"

"I cannot speak for the young ladies," I replied realising that I might as well tell the truth, "but I am smitten with the way he hits a ball, and also with his genius in explaining it to me. Carter, I tell you this fellow Wallace is a wonder!"

Carter was silent a moment.

"I wonder if he would like a job as golf professional?" he said.

"Golf professional?" I repeated. "Where?"

"Right here in Woodvale," declared Carter.

"To take Kirkaldy's place?"

"Yes, to take Kirkaldy's place. Kirkaldy handed me his resignation to-night to take effect on Saturday. A rich uncle has died in Scotland, and our young friend will buy his own golf balls in future, instead of winning them from you and me. Now you and I constitute the majority of the house committee, and if this Wallace is as good as you say, and I do not doubt your judgment in the least, what's the matter with offering him Kirkaldy's place? A man who can drive a dozen balls two hundred yards and tell how he does it is squandering his time and cheating humanity by serving as hired man."

I told him what Wallace said when I offered him money.

"That's all nonsense," declared Carter. "He can be a professional and return to the amateur ranks after he has gone into some other avocation. That is the rule not only here but in Great Britain. Kirkaldy can now become an amateur, and doubtless will. Get your hat and we'll go over and talk to this chap right now."

"How about LaHume?" I asked. LaHume is the third member of the house committee.

"Never mind about LaHume," laughed Carter. "I imagine there are reasons why LaHume might oppose the selection of Wallace, but if we are satisfied LaHume will have to be."

The Bishops had retired when we reached the old house, but Wallace came to the door, book in hand. Naturally he was surprised to see us at that hour, and he was even more surprised when Carter told him the object of our visit.

"We are not authorised to make you a definite offer to-night," said Carter. "I am chairman of the committee, and if you care to consider the matter seriously we suggest that you play a round with our present professional, Kirkaldy, to-morrow afternoon. If your work is satisfactory, as I have no doubt it will be from what Smith has said of you, the place is yours at the same salary and the same perquisites received by Kirkaldy."

"And what are these?" asked Wallace, a twinkle in his eye which I had noticed on several occasions. It was a peculiar combination of shrewdness, curiosity, and amusement, but one could not take offence at it. He certainly is an odd fish, and I like him even if I do not understand him.

"One hundred dollars a month with room and board, and all you can earn giving lessons," said Carter. "Kirkaldy averages three hundred dollars a month, and could have made more had he not been lazy."

"That certainly is a tempting chance for one who is getting twenty dollars a month," observed Wallace, after a long pause. "I like it here, and will not leave Mr. Bishop without due notice, but if you can obtain my release and can positively assure me that my amateur standing will not be impaired I will try to qualify for the position you offer. I don't mind telling you," he added, and I noticed the same odd twinkle in his eyes, "that there was a time, and I hope it will recur, when I thought much of playing the game in a non-professional capacity. That, however, is amongst ourselves, and if I become your professional I shall attend strictly to my business."

The following morning I saw Mr. Bishop, who informed me that Wallace had already related the purport of our visit the preceding evening.

"I'll tell you how I look at it, Jack," the old man said. "He's not an awful good hired man, but he's willin' and eager to learn, and has the makings of the best one in the county, but mor'n that he is a real gentleman, and good company for mother and me, and I hate like the mischief to lose him. But Lord bless ye, if he can make three hundred dollars a month teaching you fools how to hit a ball with a stick, why I ain't got no call to keep him here. That's as much money as I make out of this whole blamed farm, and I have to work and not play for a livin'. If Wallace is the man you want, take him, and I won't put a straw in his way. Only I hope you'll sorter hint to him that we'd take it kindly if he'd make it a point to drop over here once in a while and take supper with mother and me, and stay all night, if he'd care to. Will you do that, Jack?"

I heartily promised I would, and felt as guilty as if I had stolen some of Bishop's prize sheep. I went down the fields and told Wallace the old man had consented to release him, and that Kirkaldy would be on hand at the club to play a trial round at two o'clock.

I will describe that game and some other happenings in my next entry.



ENTRY NO. XIII

OUR NEW PROFESSIONAL

LaHume was furious when Carter and I told him Wallace was a candidate for Kirkaldy's place.

"What do you mean by taking this step without consulting me?" he blustered.

"We have not employed this chap yet," Carter calmly responded. "Don't get excited, Percy, Wallace may not make good."

"But who knows who he is?" demanded LaHume. "He may be the rankest kind of an impostor."

"A golf impostor?" smiled Carter. "I never heard of one. We can get a line on him before he has played five holes."

"I don't mean that," growled LaHume. "What I mean is that we don't know anything about this fellow. He comes with no recommendations, and all that sort of thing."

"If he can play within five strokes of Kirkaldy, and teach Smith how to keep from slicing, that's recommendation enough," remarked Carter. "What have you against him, Percy?"

"I'll vote against him in the committee," hotly declared LaHume, "and if I'm over-ruled I will appeal the matter to the club."

"Go as far as you like, my boy," drawled Carter, slowly adjusting his monocle and turning on his heel.

The news Kirkaldy had resigned and that "Bishop's hired man, Wallace," was to have a try out for his place spread rapidly, and created no end of comment and excitement. When it was rumoured that the Misses Harding, Ross, and Lawrence—the three acknowledged beauties of the club—were his sponsors the interest was vastly increased.

Wallace appeared half an hour ahead of the appointed time, and I introduced him to Kirkaldy. The latter studied him intently as they chatted, but asked no questions concerning his identity with their native Scotland. Wallace looked over an array of clubs, selected some which suited him, but retained my cleek and mashie. It was agreed I should act as caddy for Wallace, Chilvers for Kirkaldy, and that Carter should referee. LaHume declined to act in any capacity.

All games were postponed to watch this strange contest, and the "gallery" clustered at the first tee numbered fully one hundred. It was agreed that the contest should be at medal play, the match score also to be taken into consideration.

Mr. Harding called me aside before the match started.

"What do you think about this game, Smith?" he asked. "You've seen both of them play, and I hav'n't. This young fellow, LaHume, is bluffing around offering to bet any part of five hundred dollars Kirkaldy will beat this Wallace seven strokes. I don't mind losing the money, but I hate to make a foolish bet and be laughed at."

"Take LaHume up, and I'll stand half the bet," I said, after considering the matter for a moment. "Wallace is a stranger to the course, but I doubt if Kirkaldy or anyone living can beat him seven strokes."

Harding covered LaHume's money, and the latter placed several hundred dollars more at the same odds. Miss Lawrence heard he was betting against Wallace, and her eyes blazed with indignation.

"You go to Mr. LaHume," she said to Marshall, "and ask him what odds he will give that Mr. Wallace does not win the game. Do not tell him who wishes to know."

"What odds Wallace does not win the game?" sneered LaHume, when Marshall sounded him. "Five to one, up to a thousand dollars!"

Just before they teed off, Marshall put a crisp one-hundred-dollar note belonging to Miss Lawrence in Harding's hands as stakeholder, and LaHume promptly covered it with five bills of the same denomination. There were scores of smaller wagers with no such animus back of them.

Wallace won the toss and took the honour. I doubt if there be any greater mental or nervous strain than that of making the initial stroke in an important golf contest. The player realises that all eyes are on him, and unless he has nerves of steel and an absolute mental poise he is likely to fall the victim of a wave which surges against him as he grasps the shaft of his club.

Wallace's first shot was the poorest I had seen him execute. It went high and to the left, and for a moment I was sure it would not clear the fence, but it did, dropping in as thick a clump of swamp grass as can be found in Woodvale. It left him fully one hundred and fifty yards from the cup. It-was a most disappointing shot, and I instinctively turned and looked at LaHume.

That young gentleman was satisfied beyond measure. There was something vindictive and repellent in the satisfied expression of his face. I turned and watched Kirkaldy drive a beautiful ball within fifty yards of the cup. The first hole is two hundred and eighty-five yards from the tee.

I found Wallace's ball. It was on a soggy spot of ground, with tall slush grass in front of it, but luckily there was room to swing a club back of it. He studied it a moment intently. It was a villainous lie. I did not wish to give advice, but could not restrain myself.

"Better play safe," I said. "It will cost you only one stroke."

"I think I can take it out," he said, reaching in the bag for a heavy, old-fashioned lofting iron.

He took one glance at the green, and then came down on that ball as if he intended to drive it into the bowels of the earth. I saw nothing but a shower of mud and a huge divot hurled up by the club-head as the wrists relaxed to save breaking the shaft.

Others saw the ball as it flicked the tips of the menacing grass and soared high in the air. It struck on the near edge of the green.

"A bonny shot, mon; a guede clean shot as ere were made out thot muck!" exclaimed Kirkaldy, his face mantled with a grin of frank admiration.

It was a glorious recovery! Miss Lawrence was fairly dancing for joy. Kirkaldy laid his ball within a foot of the hole, and won it with a three against four for Wallace, the latter making bogy. Wallace is unable to explain how he made a fluke of that first shot, and I am sure I have no idea.

On the second hole both drove perfect balls over the old graveyard, but Wallace had a shade the best of it in distance and direction. Both were nicely on the green in two, and Wallace missed a putt for a three by a hair, while his opponent was lucky, running down in a long lag for four, halving it in bogy.

Timid players drive short on the third so as to avoid dropping in the brook, but both drove smashing balls far over it.

"I don't know much about this game," chuckled Harding, overtaking me at the foot-bridge, "but so far as I can see, this man of Bishop's isn't exactly what you folks call a duffer."



Both took this hole in bogy fours, and both drove the duck pond on the next hole, and we found their balls fair on the green, 220 yards away and slightly up hill. Wallace rimmed the cup for a two, and both made threes, one stroke better than bogy. It was lightning golf. LaHume's face was a study.

The fifth hole is 470 yards, and both were within easy chopping approach of the green on their second. Wallace had the worst of a bad kick, and Kirkaldy holed a thirty-foot putt for a par four, making him two up. LaHume smiled once again. The next four holes were made in bogy by both players, leaving Kirkaldy two up on both medal and match scores. Here is the out card:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KIRKALDY— 3 4 4 3 4 5 5 5 4—37 WALLACE—- 4 4 4 3 5 5 5 5 4—39

This was three under bogy for Kirkaldy, and one under for Wallace.

"I think this Scotchman of yours will do," Carter said in an undertone, as we neared the tenth tee. "He is executing fairly well for a man playing a course for the first time, fixed up with a strange set of clubs, and getting all the worst of the luck on putts. He is actually outdriving Kirkaldy, but I'm afraid our friend Miss Lawrence will lose that hundred to Percy."

"So am I," I said, "but it is the only bet he will win."

It was at the tenth hole that Miss Lawrence sliced her ball over the fence, and Wallace deftly returned it, as I have mentioned. As he looked over the ground he identified it, and for the first time during the game he took a sweeping glance at the "gallery."

His eyes met those of Miss Lawrence, and I saw him make a gesture with his hand as if to remind her that this was the spot where he first had seen her. She answered with a smile and a nod, and then said something to Miss Harding and Miss Rose, at which the three of them laughed.

Then the machine-like Kirkaldy drove his usual accurate long ball.

It is a dangerous hole, this tenth, with a deep cut through which the country road runs to the right, and dense woods and rock-strewn underbrush to the left. The cautious player does not hazard making the narrow opening, but Wallace smashed that ball a full 250 yards as straight as a rifle shot. It is a 450-yard hole, and it has been the ambition of every player in the club to reach it in two. Kirkaldy had never done it, but Wallace had made a record-breaking drive. Could he reach the green?

Kirkaldy brassied and was short, but in good position. Wallace did not have a good lie, but I told him it was a full 200 yards, and the fore caddy gave him the direction. It was uphill almost all the way to the hole. He used a full brassie, going well into the turf, and I knew when the ball started it would reach the green.

We climbed the hill breathless with curiosity. I came in sight of the green. A new, white ball lay within a foot of the cup! All records on "Mount Terrible" had been shattered!

Kirkaldy smiled grimly and was short on his approach, but got down in two more, losing the hole with a five against that phenomenal three. Five is bogy and par for this hole, and sevens more common than fives. The medal score was even.

They halved the eleventh, Wallace won the twelfth and lost the fourteenth, both making threes on the tricky thirteenth. Wallace took the medal lead by winning the fifteenth in another perfect three, and the sixteenth produced fours for both of them. It was Kirkaldy's turn to register a three on the next, this bringing them to the last hole all square on medal score, with Kirkaldy one up on match play. It was intensely exciting!

The eighteenth hole is 610 yards. By wonderful long work both were on the green in three, but Kirkaldy was on the extreme far edge and away. His approach putt was too strong, overrunning the cup by twelve feet. Wallace laid his ball dead within six inches of the cup, and putted down in five, one under bogy. This insured him at least a tie for the medal score, but the match honours would go to Kirkaldy if he could hole that long putt. We held our breaths! He went to the left by a slight margin, halving the match by holes. Here is the card coming in:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KIRKALDY— 5 4 6 3 4 4 4 3 6—39 WALLACE—- 3 4 5 3 5 3 4 4 5-36



Wallace therefore won the medal round by a score of 75 against 76 for Kirkaldy, and honours were even on holes. It was a match to make one's blood tingle; a clean, honest contest between two clear-headed and muscle-trained athletes.

Kirkaldy was the first to grasp Wallace's hand, and in the blue eyes of our tried and popular golf mentor there was naught but sincere goodwill and unaffected admiration.

"Ye'll do, my laddy, ye'll do!" Kirkaldy exclaimed. "I dinna ken who taught ye, but he was a guede mon; a guede mon!"

As Kirkaldy's ball stopped rolling, and it was known Wallace had won the medal score, the breathless gallery found their voices and gave vent to their feelings. The silent and motionless circle came to life, and, as it were, exploded toward its centre. We found ourselves in the vortex of cheering men, laughing girls, fluttering 'kerchiefs, and the excited clatter of a hundred voices.

I looked for LaHume and saw him stalking toward the club house. Someone clutched me by the sleeve, and I looked into the beautiful and happy eyes of Miss Lawrence.

"Wasn't it glorious!" she said. "Isn't he a splendid player! Did you ever see anything like that tenth hole? And I won! I just thought I should scream when Mr. Wallace lay dead for a five on this hole!"

"Say, he's all right, eh, Smith!" said Mr. Harding, handing me a roll of money. "Here's your share of the plunder. It was like picking it up in the street after a cyclone has hit a national bank. I'm going to blow mine in giving a dinner to Wallace and Kirkaldy, and everybody is invited."

We had that dinner, and right royally did we welcome the new and speed the parting professional. And this is how Tom Wallace, "Bishop's hired man," came to Woodvale as its golf professional.

After the dinner in honour of our professionals Kirkaldy made me a present of his famous driver. It is a beauty, and I confidently expect to lengthen my drive by at least ten yards with it. For the first time in my life I am now reasonably sure with my cleek shots. I do not know when I have been so well satisfied with my prospects.

My apparent stock losses to date foot up to $202,000.



ENTRY NO. XIV

MYSELF AND I

For an hour I have looked at the unsullied page of this diary. It amused me to turn back over its pages, but when I started to write the words would not come.

A liar is one who by direction or indirection seeks to deceive. The man who lies to an enemy is a diplomat; the man who lies to give harmless play to his imagination is an artist; the man who lies to his friends for the purpose of taking advantage of them is a scoundrel, and the man who lies to himself is a fool.

After re-reading this diary I am convinced that I belong in the last class.

I have been lying to myself for the past three weeks. With a smile on my lips I have looked myself in the eye and told the one falsehood over and over again. I have been the ass fondly to believe I told it with such detail and verisimilitude as to carry conviction to myself. I told it for the last time a few minutes ago.

My alter ego laughed in my face. I dislike to be jeered at, even by myself. I humbly apologised. I promised to reform and confess, and here is the confession:

I am in love. I have been in love for three weeks. It is not necessary to say with whom, since I and myself both know, but in order that the crimes of evasion and equivocation may no longer be charged against me, I frankly record that I am in love with Grace Harding!

There you have it, John Henry Smith! Head it over carefully. Does that suit you? With it goes my humble apology. Does not this constitute the amende honorable? What did you say? Ah, it does! Good Shake hands, old fellow! Now let's sit quietly down and talk this matter over, and see how we stand. I wish you to help me.

The situation is slightly less complicated. It is settled that I am in love with Grace Harding. What's that? "We are in love with Grace Harding," you say. Very well, old fellow, have it your own way. You are the only one in the world with whom I shall refuse to become jealous. They say that two heads are better than one, even if one is a blockhead—meaning me, of course.

We are in love with Grace Harding. Well, what if I did say it before? I like to keep on saying it. It's the best thing I have written since I started this stupid diary. We are in love with Grace Harding.

When you come to think of it, John, we cannot take any great amount of credit for that. It is not startling, and I'm awfully afraid it is not original. Now, as I look at it, it would be much more remarkable if I—I beg your pardon, John Henry Smith—it would be much more remarkable if we were not in love with Grace Harding. Did you ever think of that?

Falling in love with Grace Harding was the easiest thing we ever did, Smith, and you know it. We are entitled to no more credit for it than for admiring one of those glorious sunsets, when the eye is ravished by blended and ever-changing tints of cloud, sky, and enchanted landscape. We do not boast, Smith, that we love the songs of the birds, or the graceful bend of the willow as it yields to the summer's breeze; we do not call attention to our worship of the early morn, when the dew sparkles like swarming diamonds on grass and flower, and bridal veils of mist float over the breasts of the hills.

We loved her, Smith, from the moment she dawned upon us the day her father made that wonderful drive. We loved her while she was playing that first game of golf—and now we can talk frankly with each other, I will confess I never saw a woman play worse than she did that day. But the fact that our admiration grew during every moment of that weird and wonderful exhibition of how not to hit a ball, proves we were in love. You never denied it, you say? I know you didn't; and it's to your credit.

But does she love us, Smith? You don't know? Of course you don't know, but what do you think about it? You hope, she does, you say. Smith you're as stupid as I am! Certainly you hope she does, and so do I, but have you any reason to believe she does? Why don't you say something?

"She is pleasant to us, smiles at us, and seems to enjoy our society," you say. Well, what of it? What does that prove? I could say the same thing of Miss Ross, Miss Dangerfield, and even of Miss Lawrence. I am not so conceited as to imagine these charming girls are in love with us because they laugh, smile, and seem to be pleased at our attempts to entertain them.

Carter could make claim that Miss Harding was in love with him on the same plea. And speaking of Carter, I should like your opinion of him. I'll tell you frankly I don't like the way he acts.

Mind you, Smith, I'm not going to say anything against Carter, and I shall not permit you to. Carter has as much right to fall in love with Grace Harding as we have, and for that matter I'm afraid he has more claim in that direction. If you will recollect, it was Carter who introduced us to Miss Harding.

I have no idea when and where he met her. Carter is a chap who attends to his own affairs and who does not permit others to interfere in them. It is not likely he will tell us, and I shall never ask him.

Mr. Harding sometimes calls him "Jim." That goes to prove that Carter has known the Hardings for a long time. Harding once spoke of knowing Carter's father.

That is not what worries me. It is Carter's air and whole attitude which puts me on guard. Carter must know, John Henry Smith, that we pay an unusual amount of attention to Miss Harding, and sometimes I almost imagine he has surmised what I have confessed to you, but it does not seem to annoy or concern him in the least. It is as if he knew just how far we can go. It strikes me as the confidence bred of assured supremacy, but, of course, I may be in error, and sincerely hope I am, for your sake as well as mine.

Carter and Miss Harding are much together. They take long walks, and both seem very happy in one another's company.

I stumbled across them last evening while looking for a lost ball in the old graveyard. They were on a scat under a weeping willow tree, and were sitting very close together. Carter was reading something and she was looking over his shoulder. They were laughing when they looked up and saw me poking about in the grass with my club.

"Hello, Smith!" drawled Carter, looking at me through that monocle of his. "Lost your ball? How many times must I tell you that the proper way to play this hole is to drive over this sacred spot and not into it?"

Miss Harding drew slightly away from him when she saw me—at least I imagined so—and smiled and looked innocent as could be.



What I am getting at, John Henry Smith, is this: We would not dare ask Miss Harding to sit with us in such a lonely and secluded spot, and I think we would have been more embarrassed than was Carter at so unexpected an interruption. It simply goes to prove that—well, I don't know just what it does prove.

Chilvers told me a year ago he had heard Carter was engaged to be married to a very pretty and immensely wealthy girl. I did not think much of it at the time, having only passing interest in whether Carter married or remained single. The other day I asked Chilvers if he had heard anything more about Carter's engagement, and he looked at me rather oddly and said he had not. He said his wife might know something about it, and advised me to ask her or Carter.

Suppose they were engaged, John Henry Smith? That would settle it, you say. You quit too easily. If you desert me in this extremity I shall go ahead on my own account. I love her; I must have her! Let Carter fall in love with someone else!

For some malignant reason this man Carter has persistently stood between me and the realisation of my cherished ambitions. He has won cup after cup and medal after medal which would have fallen to me were it not for his devilish combination of skill and luck. But he shall not thwart my love! He shall not; I swear it; he shall not! Smile, John Henry Smith, you do not love her as I do.

"Why should she fall in love with me, or wish to marry me? What have I done in the world, or what do I expect to do which will compel that admiration and respect which is the basis of true love?"

Those are harsh questions, John Henry Smith. I tell you I love her; is not that sufficient? She is not the woman to weigh a man in the same scales with his money, his miles of railroad track, and such material assets. I would love her if her father were still a section boss.

And I am going to do something in this world. I propose to show you, John Henry Smith, that I can do something beside play golf. Am I not doing something now? Am I not risking practically every dollar I have in the world on my business judgment? Call it gambling if you will; if so, it is big gambling. The man who wins must take chances. Mr. Harding did not become a railway magnate by remaining a section boss. He is a commanding figure in Wall Street. I shall be that and more.

Laugh if you will, John Henry Smith; I mean every word of it!

What does Carter do? He has not done a stroke of work in five years. He says a man with an income of $100,000 a year has no right to work and strive to increase it. I claim a man should do something to make a name for himself, and leave a record of which his children and grand-children will be proud. You watch me, John Henry Smith! I'll show you and Miss Harding that I can do something beside play golf.

We have wandered from our subject. The question is this: what shall we do in order to ascertain if Miss Harding entertains toward us any sentiment stronger than friendship? Ask her, you say. Suppose you ask her. No, my dear John Henry, that is not the proper step at this time.

I do not set myself up as an authority in matters of love, but I do hold that no wise man ever proposed to a good and true woman without knowing in advance that she would accept him. Love has its secret code, and Nature gives the key to its discerning votaries. I have that key, John Henry Smith.

One need not speak or write in order to send the first timid messages of love; and by the same token the recipient need not even frown in order to tenderly reject the proffered passion. There are as many words in this unwritten and unspoken vocabulary of love as may be found in lexicons. Did you know that, John Henry?

The man who fails to avail himself of this silent but eloquent language, and who stupidly assaults a woman with an avowal of an alleged love, deserves to be coldly rejected. It is as much of an insult or an indiscretion as to walk unheralded and unbidden into a private room. Never do it, John Henry!

If a man becomes convinced he loves a woman he should tell her by some message in the code which both understand. He will know if she receives it. It is not necessary that she answer, "yes." If she answer not at all he has achieved a notable victory, but if she promptly signals a decided "no" he has met with irreparable defeat. That settles it, my dear Smith.

A woman may refuse a man with words, and he be justified in declining to accept the implied rejection, but there is no appeal from the silent decision which leaps from the heart.

So long as no message comes back unopened keep on sending them. You are justified in assuming that they have been read and are being entertained. The time will come, John Henry, when you will get your answer. If it is against you, accept it with the best grace you can command. Do not be the fool to think her lips will veto her heart.

If, on the contrary, there comes the glad day when over the throbbing unseen wire there comes a telepagram sounding the letters "Y-E-S," proceed with the sweet formality of a verbal avowal of your love, and you will not be disappointed.

Smile if you will, John Henry Smith, you know I have told the truth.

We have sent a few of these messages to Miss Harding, and thus far none have been returned unopened. As you say, John Henry, they have been very timid ones, and possibly are so vague she does not think them worth even a decided negative. We will send more emphatic ones; not too emphatic, mind you, but couched in symbols which cannot be misunderstood.

That is our best plan, John Henry Smith, don't you think so? I am glad we agree at last. As yet nothing has happened of a character positively discouraging.

Carter? I wish you would not mention his name. From this on we will ignore Carter.

I intended to write of our automobile trip, but the hour is late and I must postpone it until some other time. Good night, John Henry Smith!



ENTRY NO. XV

THE AUTO AND THE BULL

I started to tear out what I wrote last night, but on second thought will let it remain. Its perusal in future years may amuse me. I will now resume the trail of Woodvale happenings.

The touring car won from her father by Miss Harding is a massive and beautiful machine. Luckily I am familiar with the mechanism of this particular make, and, as a consequence, am called in for advice when any trifling question arises. Harding scorns a professional chauffeur.

"Next to running one of these road engines," he declares, "the most fun is in pulling them apart to see how they are made. I would as soon hire a man to eat for me as to shawf one of these choo-choo cars."

Shortly after the big machine arrived Mr. Harding received a letter from a gentleman named Wilson, who is spending the summer at the Oak Cliff Golf and Country Club. Wilson challenged him to come to Oak Cliff and play golf, and to bring his family and a party of friends with him. Harding read the letter and laughed.

"Here's my chance to win a game," he declared. "I can't beat the Kid, but I'll put it all over Wilson, you see if I don't."

"Don't be too sure, papa," cautioned Miss Harding.

"Wilson only started golf this year, and the only game he can beat me at is hanging up pictures," insisted Harding. "He stands six-foot-four, and weighs about one hundred and fifty. He looks like a pair of compasses, but he's all right, and we must go up and see him. Do you know the road, Smith?"

"Every foot of it."

"How far is it?"

"About forty miles."

"Good!" declared the magnate. "I'll wire Wilson we'll be there to-morrow. We'll fill up the buzz wagon, take an early start, and put in a whole day at it. Smith shall be chief shawfer, and the Kid and I will take turns when he gets tired."

And we did. We started at seven o'clock with a party consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Harding, Miss Harding, Chilvers and his wife, Miss Dangerfield, Carter, and myself.

There are many hills intervening and some stretches of indifferent road, but we figured we should make the run in two hours or less—but we didn't.

The few early risers gave us a cheer as we rolled away from the club house and careened along the winding path which leads to the main road. The dew yet lay on the grass, and little lakes of fog hung over the fair green. It was a perfect spring morning, and the ozone-charged air had an exhilarating effect as we cleaved through it.

Miss Harding was in the seat with me. I don't imagine this exactly pleased Carter, but it suited me to a dot. My lovely companion was in splendid spirits.

"Now, Jacques Henri," she said to me in French, pretending that I was a professional chauffeur, "you are on trial. Unless you show marked proficiency we shall dispense with your services."

"And if I do?" I inquired.

"Then you may consider yourself retained," she laughed.

"For life?" I boldly asked.

I was so rattled at this rather broad insinuation that I swung out of the road and struck a rut, which gave the car a thorough shaking.

"If that's the way you drive you will be lucky if you're not discharged before we reach Oak Cliff," Miss Harding declared, and I did not dare look in her eyes to see if she were offended or not.

For the following minutes I attended strictly to business. The steering gear and other operating parts were a bit stiff on account of newness, but I soon acquired the "feel" of them, and we ate up the first ten miles in seventeen minutes.

We were following a sinuous brook toward its source, now skirting its quiet depths along the edge of reedy meadows, and then chasing it into the hills where it boiled and complained as it dashed and spumed amid rocks and boulders.

"Hold on there, Smith!" shouted Harding from the rear seat in the tonneau.

"Stop, Jacques Henri!" ordered my fair employer, and then I dared look into her smiling eyes.

"I want to cut some of those willow switches," explained Harding, as the car stopped.

"What do you want of willow switches, John?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"Going to make whistles out of them," he said, cutting several which sprouted out from the edge of a spring. "Besides they're good things to keep the flies from biting the tonneau. Smith runs so slow that they are stealing a ride."

"Defend me," I said to my employer.

"Jacques Henri is doing as he is told," declared Miss Harding.

The spring was so inviting that we sampled its clear, cold water. Harding in the meantime whittling industriously on his willow switch. When he found that his whistle would "blow" he was as pleased as if he had designed a new type of locomotive.

A mile farther on we passed sedately through a country village and aroused the fleeting interest of the loungers in front of the combined post-office and news store. Then we entered a fine farming country, and from it plunged into a forest so dense that the overhanging boughs almost spanned our pathway.

Moss-covered stone walls lined both sides of the road. Everywhere was a profusion of wild flowers, their petals brushing against our tires, and their flaunting reds, yellows, and blues brightening the gloom of the encompassing wood. A gray squirrel scampered across our path and impudent chipmunks chattered to right and left. And then we came to a small clearing filled with the wagons, tents and litter of a gipsy camp.



"Let's stop and have our fortunes told!" cried Miss Dangerfield, but my employer vetoed that proposition. It was a vivid flash of colour. The brightly painted wagons with their canvas tops, the red-shirted men, black of hair and eyes, olive of skin, and graceful in their laziness; the older women bare-headed, bent of shoulder, and brilliantly shrouded in shawls; the younger women straight as arrows, bold and keen of glance, and decked in ribbons and jewelry, and on every hand swarms of gipsy children, more or less clothed. The blue smoke of their camp-fires twisted through the dark green of the fir trees in the background.

Again the forest closed upon us. The grade became steeper, and in places our road had been blasted through solid rock. And then we reached the summit of this ridge, and like a flash the superb panorama of the Hudson burst upon us. At our feet lay the broad bosom of the Tappan Zee, its waters glistening in the sunlight, the spires of a village in the foreground, and the distance blue-girt with cliffs, hills, and mountains.

I have seen it a thousand times, but it is ever new.

"Stop; Jacques Henri!" commanded Miss Harding, and I stopped.

"What's the matter?" asked Harding. "Something busted?"

"We're going to sit right here a minute or more and admire this," declared Miss Harding.

"Great; isn't it?" admitted Harding. "Who owns it, Smith? Does it cost anything to look at it?"

"Not a penny," I said.

"First time I've got something for nothing since I struck New York," was the comment of that gentleman.

Four or five miles across the Tappan Zee the blue of the mountain was splattered with the white of straggling houses. To the left was a checker-board of farms, an area hundreds of square miles in extent basking in the rays of a cloudless sun. Yet beyond, the Orange mountains lifted their rounded slopes. To the south was the grim line of the Palisades, blue-black save where trees clung to their steep sides. On the north Hook Mountain dipped its feet into the Hudson, and to our ears came the dull boom of explosions where vandals are blasting away its sides and ruining its beauty.

"Right over there," said Carter, pointing toward Piermont, "is where Andre landed when he crossed the river on the mission to Benedict Arnold which ended in his capture and death. Beyond the mountain is the monument which marks the spot where he met with what our school books term 'an untimely fate.'"

"A short distance to the south," I added, "is the old house where Washington made his headquarters during the most discouraging years of the Revolution, and in which he and Rochambeau planned the campaign which ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. And not far away is 'Sleepy Hollow,' where Washington Irving lived, wrote, and died."

"Yes, yes," contributed Chilvers, "and on this sacred soil there now is bunched a cluster of millionaires, any one of whom could pay the entire expense of the War of the Revolution as easily as I can settle for a gas bill."

We had not noticed Harding, who suddenly appeared in front of the machine with his driver and a handful of golf balls.

"The future historian will record," he declared, "that from this spot Robert L. Harding drove a golf ball into that pond below!"

"Suppose you can, Robert," observed his wife, "what earthly good will it do you, and what will it prove?"

"It will prove that I can drive one of these blamed things into that pond," he grinned. "I've got to break into history some way."

On the fifth trial he had the satisfaction of driving a ball into that pond. It was not much of a drive, but it pleased him immensely.

"I got my money's worth out of those five balls," he declared as he climbed back into the car.

"See how the sun strikes the sail of that schooner!" exclaimed Miss Harding. "And how it glances from the brass work of those yachts at anchor! There goes an auto boat darting through a swarm of sail boats like a bird through fluttering butterflies. It is a glorious view from here!"

"It makes the Rhine look like counterfeit money," asserted Chilvers, whose similes usually are grotesque. "Any time you hear an American raving over the wonderful scenery of Europe you can place a bet that he has never seen that of his own country."

"That's right, Chilvers," said Harding. "We have all kinds of scenery out West that has never been used. It's a drug in the market, laying around out-of-doors for the first one that comes along."

We made the next ten miles at a rapid gait through one of the finest country-residence sections in this fair land of ours. Then we entered a sparsely settled agricultural district. We were opposite a meadow which recently had been mowed. It was a gentle slope with picturesque rocks flanking its sides, and near the road was a pond.



"Whoa there, Smith!" shouted Harding. I jammed on brakes and turned to see what was the matter.

"What is it, papa?" asked Miss Harding.

"This is just the place I've been looking for," he said, standing and surveying the meadow with the eye of an expert.

"What for?"

"To paste a ball in," he asserted, reaching for his clubs.

"Drive ahead, Jacques Henri!" ordered my charming employer. "Papa Harding, we're not going to stop every time you see a place where you wish to drive a ball!"

"Just this once, Kid," pleaded her father. "Let me soak a few balls out there, and I won't say another word until we get to Oak Cliff. Be good, Grace, we've got lots of time."

"Very well," she consented, looking at her watch. "We'll wait ten minutes for you."

"Here's where I get some real practice," he said, arming himself with a driver and a box of balls. "Come on, Chilvers, you and Carter help me chase 'em."

"Robert Harding, you are hopeless!" declared his good wife. "You have become a perfect golf crank."

"Let me alone," he grinned, as he climbed the fence. "I'm on my vacation. Keep your eyes on this one, boys!"

Before we started from Woodvale he declared that it was all nonsense to take along a change of clothes, and he was dressed in that wonderful costume, plaids, red coat and all.

We lay back in our seats and smilingly watched his efforts. He has shown signs of improvement recently, and is imbued with the enthusiasm of the novice who realises that his practice has counted for something.

He drove the first half-dozen balls indifferently, but the next one was really a good one.

"There was a beaut!" he exclaimed, turning to us as the ball disappeared with a bound over the crest of the slope. "What's the matter with you folks? Why don't you applaud when a man makes a good shot?"

"That's balls enough, papa, dear," said Miss Harding. "By the time you have found them your time will be up."

"Right you are, Kid," he admitted. "I'm proud of that last one, and I'm going to pace it. Help me pick 'cm up, boys, I'll drive 'em back, and then we'll go on."

He started to pace the distance of the longer ball, counting as he strode along. When he reached the crest of the slope we could hear him droning, "one hundred twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three," etc. Carter was hunting for the balls to the right and Chilvers for those to the left.

The red coat and plaid cap disappeared over the hill. Miss Dangerfield was chattering about something, I know not what. I was looking at Miss Harding, and did not hear her.

I did hear some sound which resembled distant thunder. A moment later I saw the top of that plaid cap bob above the hill. Then I saw the shoulders of that red coat, and the huge figure of the railroad magnate fairly shot into view.

He was running as fast as his stout legs would carry him, waving his club and occasionally looking quickly to his rear.

I knew in an instant what was the matter.

"What is papa running for?" exclaimed Miss Harding. That question was speedily answered.

"Run! Run, boys!" he yelled as he plowed down that slope. "Run like hell; he's after us!"

Carter and Chilvers took one glance and the three of them came tearing down that hill.

There came into view the lowered head and humped shoulders of a Holstein bull close on the trail of the lumbering millionaire. The women screamed.

"He will be killed; he will be killed!" moaned Mrs. Harding. "Oh, do something to save him, Mr. Smith; please do something!"

I am rather proud of my generalship at that critical moment. I have a certain amount of wit in an emergency, and luckily it did not fail me. It is not an easy matter to head off an enraged bull in an open field, but I saw a chance and took it.



I grasped Miss Harding and fairly threw her to the ground.

"Jump! Jump!" I yelled to the others.

Mrs. Chilvers and Miss Dangerfield instantly obeyed, but Mrs. Harding was too terrified to comprehend my orders. Her eyes were fixed on her husband, and she neither saw nor heard me. There was not a second to lose.

I swung that heavy touring-car in a backward curve, so as to face the fence over which Mr. Harding had climbed. Turning on full speed I headed for it.

The powerful machine quivered for the fraction of a second and then leaped from the roadway. There was a crash of splintered fence posts and boards, a glimpse of flying lumber, and we were in the meadow.

It takes some time to tell this, but it was not long in happening. When we went through that fence Harding was probably seventy yards away and to our left. The bull was not twenty feet back of him and gaining rapidly at every jump. I saw nothing of Carter or Chilvers.

Harding had dropped his club and was running desperately. I feared every moment that he would fall. He was headed for the pond, but never would have reached it.

"Drop down! Drop down!" I shouted to Mrs. Harding.

We went over a hummock where a drain-pipe had been laid and I thought we were done for. The shock hurled Mrs. Harding to the floor. Beyond that point the ground was hard and fairly smooth and our speed became terrific.



The distance between the bull and his intended victim had decreased to so small a space that I despaired of cutting him off. I cannot tell exactly what happened. I only know that I kept my eye on that bull as religiously as one attempts to obey the golf mandate, "keep your eye on the ball."

Then I struck the bull.

I caught him with the left of the front of the car. The collision was at an angle of about thirty degrees, I should say. I missed Harding by not more than six feet. I presume we were travelling at a rate of a mile a minute, and that bull certainly was going one-third that fast.

As the front of the machine was upon the animal I ducked, but did not release my firm grip on the steering-wheel. There was photographed on my brain an impression of a shaggy head, short and sharp horns, rage-crazed eyes, a wet nose and lolling tongue, of turf cast up by flying hooves, of a bearded face with staring eyes, of a red coat and a bewildering plaid—and then the machine was upon them.

The shock of the collision was so slight that I feared I had missed my target. I shut off the power and swung sharply to the right. One glance proved that Mrs. Harding was uninjured.

Two objects were on the ground over which I had passed, and Carter and Chilvers were running toward them. Had I struck Harding? I suffered agonies in those moments, and I was the first to reach his side.

As I sprang from the car he raised to a sitting posture and attempted to speak, but it was impossible to do so. Before Mrs. Harding could reach him he was on his feet, making gestures to indicate that he was not hurt.

"He's all right!" shouted Chilvers, rushing up to us. "Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Harding, he only stumbled and fell. He's winded but will catch his breath in a minute!"

Mr. Harding panted, and between gasps bowed and made pantomimic signs to indicate that Chilvers had correctly diagnosed his ailment.

His wife has too much sense to give way to her emotions at such a time. She brushed his clothes and wiped the perspiration from his face. Miss Harding and the others were on the scene before his voice came back to him.

"I'm—all—right!" he declared with much effort, walking and swinging his arms to prove it to himself and us. Then he shook hands with me, and I noted that his violent exercise had not impaired the strength of his grip. We walked over and looked at the dead bull.

"That was a good shot, Smith," he said. "That was great work. Do you know how close you came to hitting me?"

"It was very close, but I had one eye on you," I replied.

"I honestly believe it was the rush of air from the machine that keeled me over, but I was about done for. I doubt if I would have made that pond."

"Governor," said Chilvers, "he would have nailed you in two more jumps. That was as pretty a piece of interference as I ever saw."

There was not a mark on the dead animal, whose neck must have been broken.

"When you struck him," said Chilvers, "the air was full of surprised beef. That bull went at least twelve feet in the air, and he never moved after he came down. It was a glancing shot, and you could not have done better, Smith, if you made a hundred trials."

"Once is enough for me," I said.

I turned my attention to the automobile, and as I started toward it Miss Harding intercepted me.

"That was very brave of you, Jacques Henri," she said, offering both of her hands. "You are an excellent chauffeur, and we all thank you."

"Don't praise me too much or I shall be tempted to demand an exorbitant salary," I declared. "I'm glad I had the sense to think of it in time. Let's see if much damage was done to the machine."

It was a happy moment for John Henry Smith, and I would tackle a bull every day under the same circumstances if I knew that there was waiting for me the reward of such a glance from those eyes and the clasp of those little hands.

The forward lamps were smashed beyond repair and several rods were slightly bent, but aside from these trifles I could not see that any damage had been done. Mr. Harding and the others joined us.

"I suppose somebody owns that bull," he said. "Do you happen to know who runs this farm, Smith?"

I had no idea. There was no farmhouse in sight, and Harding was in a quandary. He thought a moment and then produced one of his cards.

"Write this for me, Smith. My hand is too shaky. Let's see," and then he dictated the following: "While playing golf I was attacked by this bull. Send bill for bull to Woodvale Club."

"I should say that was all right," he said, reading it carefully. "It is short and does not go into unnecessary details."

We tied the card to the animal's horns, and I have an idea the owner of that unfortunate beast will be mystified to account for the fate which befel him. Having repaired the fence as best we could we resumed our journey to Oak Cliff, and Mr. Harding was content to remain in his seat until we reached there.

Later in the day Chilvers drew a diagram of this exploit on the back of a menu card, and I paste it in here as a droll memento of this incident.



Chilvers attempted to explain to Harding and the rest of us that the collision between the auto and the bull resulted in "pulled or hooked shot," the bull taking the place of a golf ball and the machine serving as the face of the driver. It is quite accurate as showing the relative positions of the various factors, but I should not term it an art product.

"I am familiar with the road from here to Oak Cliff," said Miss Harding when we had gone a mile or so. "You may rest, Jacques Henri, and I'll take your place."

She did so, and handled the big car with the skill of an expert. I did not talk to her for fear of distracting her attention from the task she had assumed. I was contented to watch her, to be near her and to know that I had had the rare good fortune to do an unexpected turn for one who was near and dear to her.

I will tell of our day in Oak Cliff in my next entry.



ENTRY NO. XVI

MISS HARDING OWNS UP

"I Demand part of my payment this afternoon," I said to Miss Harding as we neared the Oak Cliff club house.

"You are impatient, Jacques Henri," she laughed. "Is it possible my credit is not good?"

"Not in this instance," I returned. "I am demanding that you refuse all invitations to play in foursomes, and that after luncheon you and I make the round of Oak Cliff."

"That is so modest a request that I grant it," she said, and ten minutes later I had the satisfaction of hearing her decline Carter's invitation to join in a foursome in which I was to take no part. This proves not only that all is fair in love, but that victory favours the one who strikes the first blow.

It was about ten o'clock when we reached Oak Cliff, and found Mr. Wilson waiting for us. Harding was impatient to test his skill against Wilson, and the two were ready to play when the rest of us were still chatting with Mrs. Wilson and others of their party.

"We are entitled to a gallery," declared Harding. "Come on, everybody, and watch me show Wilson how this game should be played."

Most of us accepted this invitation. Mr. Wilson fits the description Harding had given of him. He is wonderfully tall and slim, and I doubted if he had much skill as a golfer. His smooth-shaven features and dreamy eyes were those of the poet, but he is one of the best bankers and business men in the country.

Harding drove a fairly straight ball but Wilson promptly sliced into the tall grass. Miss Harding and I helped him search for his ball, and Chilvers joined in the hunt.

"Ah, this is very lucky!" exclaimed Mr. Wilson, bending his long frame over some object.

"Found your ball?" asked Chilvers.

"The ball? No, no," he said, coming to his feet with something in his hand which looked to me like a weed. "But I've found a rare specimen of the Articum Lappa. It is a beauty!"

"Looks sort of familiar," said the puzzled Chilvers. "What did you say it was?"

"The Articum Lappa, more commonly called the burdock," explained Mr. Wilson.

"If you can't find your ball drop another one and play!" shouted Harding from the other side of course. Just then I discovered the ball, and after two strokes Wilson got it out of trouble, and then by a lucky approach and putt won the hole. Harding looked at him suspiciously.



On the next hole their drives landed the balls not far apart and neither was in trouble.

"I'm afraid this man Wilson can beat me," Harding said to us in an undertone as we neared the balls.

"Don't lose your nerve, papa," cautioned his daughter.

Wilson was away, but when he was within a few yards of his ball he looked intently at the turf and then dropped to his knees and crawled slowly around.

"What are you looking for?" exclaimed Harding "There's your ball right in front of you."

"I know it," calmly said Wilson, running his hand over the turf, "but I'm curious to know what kind of Trifolium this is."

"Wilson," said the magnate, as the former rose to his full height and took a club from his bag, "Wilson, I might as well quit and give up this game."

"Why?" asked the surprised banker.

"Let me tell you something," declared Harding. "I only took up this golf business a few weeks ago, and by hard work have found out about mashies, hooks, foozles, cops, one off two and all those difficult things, but I'm blamed if I ever heard of trifoliums, or whatever you call 'em, and you can't ring 'em in on me. I won't stand for it! We don't play trifoliums in Woodvale, do we, Smith?"

"But my dear Harding," interposed Wilson, his mobile face wrinkled in a smile, "Trifolium is not a golf term and has nothing whatever to do with the game."

"What in thunder is it?"

"Trifolium is the genus name for the clover plant, and these are beautiful specimens," explained this amateur botanist.

"It is, is it?" laughed Harding. "Well, let's see how far you 'can knock that ball out of that bed of Trifoliums."

We left them soon after and returned to the club house. The ladies did not care to play before luncheon, preferring to take a rest after the exciting experiences of the trip from Woodvale. I ran across an old friend of mine, Sam Robinson, and he and I played against Carter and Chilvers. Robinson is one of the best amateurs in the country and we defeated our opponents handily.

It was a merry party which gathered about the table which had been spread under the trees near the club house. Oak Cliff is the only club which Woodvale recognises as a rival, and the Wilson's entertained us charmingly. Mr. Harding was in great spirits.

"I won!" he announced as he returned with our elongated and smiling host. "Licked Wilson, trifoliums and all, right here on his own ground! But he found a Rumex and a lot of other weeds, so he don't care."

Miss Harding and I had discovered an oil painting in the club library which interested us, and when coffee and cigars had been served I asked Mr. Wilson about its history.

"Robinson gave it to the club," he said, "he can tell its story better than I can."

"It's an odd sort of a yarn," began Robinson. "Last fall an artist friend of mine of the name of Powers wrote a letter inviting me to come and spend a few weeks with him in a camp he had established on the upper waters of the Outrades River in northeastern Quebec. He was there sketching and loafing, and I took my golf clubs and went. While he painted I batted balls around a cleared space in the forest, fished, hunted and had so much fun that we stayed there until cold weather set in. Then we loaded up a boat and started down the river with a guide."

"One evening we came to an island with rapids below it. We had to portage around these rapids, so we decided to camp for the night. It was cold, and rapidly growing colder, but Powers insisted in making a trip to that island, the beauty of its rocks fascinating his artistic soul. We emptied the boat and he pulled across the swift current. Ten minutes later we heard him yell. His boat had drifted from where he thought he had moored it, and had been dashed to pieces in the rapids below. The guide declared that there was no way to reach him without a boat, and that he would have to go back twenty miles to a lumber camp for one. We explained this to Powers, and told him to light a fire and make the best of it until morning. The current was so swift that no swimmer could breast it. It was already down to zero."



"Powers searched his pockets," continued Robinson, "and made the startling announcement that he did not have a match. Without a fire he surely would freeze before the guide could return. He was dancing up and down on a rock and swinging his arms to keep warm."

"He certainly was in a bad fix," interrupted Harding. "Was there no way to get at him?"

"Absolutely none," continued Robinson. "The sun was sinking—when I had an idea. In the bottom of my golf bag were four badly hacked and split balls. I called to Powers to keep his nerve. The balls were rubber-cored, and I widened the crack in one of them and gouged out a space in the rubber. In this I put the heads of three matches, teed the ball on the beach, called to Powers what I had done and told him to keep his eye on the ball. I hit it clean and fair, but a trail of smoke told that the concussion had ignited the matches. The ball fell in the underbrush a few yards from Powers, and he almost cried when he took out the charred match heads."

"How far was it?" asked Harding.

"I paced it later and found it to be about one hundred and forty yards," said Robinson.

"You paced it?" exclaimed Harding. "You're a bit mixed on this story, Robinson, aren't you?"

"Not at all," laughed that gentleman. "You wait and I'll explain. Then I fixed another ball and wrapped the match heads in surgeon's cotton. I popped that ball in the air. The next one was pulled, struck a rock and bounded into the water. One remained, and it was a critical moment. I was numbed with the cold, it was almost dark, and I had to make a shot for a man's life, but I made it. It went far and true and struck in the branches of a fir tree over Power's head. He did not see it, but he heard it. Then began a search for a lost ball. It was pitch dark half an hour later when Powers shouted that he had found it, and soon after we yelled like madmen when a tiny yellow flame curled up from the island. Powers asked me to drive a ham sandwich across, but I did not attempt it. The guide started back after another boat, and Powers and I spent the long hours over our respective bonfires in an effort to keep from freezing."

"It dropped to twenty-five below zero before morning, and when daybreak came I went down to the beach. The water still flowed swift and black directly across, but when I looked to the north I found that the ice extended from the shore to the upper end of the island. I put several sandwiches in my pocket and carefully walked across. Powers was trying to cook some freshwater clams when I came upon his bonfire."

"That is as much of the story as you will be interested in," concluded Robinson. "Powers kept the ball which saved his life, and in return gave me that oil painting depicting the scene at nightfall as I was driving that last ball."

"It's a good thing for your friend Powers that it was not up to me to drive that last ball," declared Harding. "That story is all right, Robinson, and the picture proves it."

As we were leaving the table Mrs. Chilvers called me aside.

"Have you made up a game for this afternoon?" she asked, and I thought I discerned a mischievous glance in her eyes.

"Why—why, yes," I hesitated, wondering if I were to be dragged into some wretched foursome. "I have arranged to play with Miss Harding."

"What, again?" she asked.

"This is only my third game with her," I declared.

"Ah, Mr. Smith, do you remember how I warned you several weeks ago?"

I remembered but did not admit it.

"I told you then that some time you would meet a golfing Venus," she said triumphantly, and without waiting for me to make a defense left and joined Miss Dangerfield.

Miss Harding and I waited until we had a clear field ahead of us before we began our game. It was one of the perfect early summer afternoons when it is a delight to live. Oak Cliff is famous for its scenery and for its velvet-like greens.

"I'm going to play my best game this afternoon," announced Miss Harding when I had teed her ball.

"I always play my best game; don't you?" I asked.

"You shall judge of that when we finish this round," she declared.

It was my first game with her since the day she won the touring car from her father, on which occasion she made Woodvale in 116. This was so marked an improvement over her former exhibition that I was at a loss to account for it. Since then Miss Harding had confined her golf to the practising of approach shots and putting, following the instructions given by Wallace. I have been so busy with Wall Street and other affairs that I have paid little attention to golf, and smiled at her enthusiasm.

"How shall we play?" I asked. "You have improved so much and are so confident that I dare not offer you more than a stroke a hole."

"I shall beat you at those odds," she said. "This is a short course, you know."

"You will have to make it in a hundred to beat me," I replied.

"Fore!" she called, and drove a beautiful ball with a true swing which was the perfection of grace. I made one which did not beat it enough to give me any advantage, and we started down the field together.

"Mr. Wallace must be a wonderfully clever teacher," I said, "or else he has a most remarkably apt pupil. I wish I could improve that rapidly."

Miss Harding smiled but declined to commit herself. Her second shot was a three-quarter midiron to the green and she made it like a veteran. She played the stroke—and it is one of the most difficult—in perfect form, and I was so astounded that I cut under a short approach shot and had to play the odd. She came within inches of going down in three, and I then missed a long putt and lost the hole outright, she not needing the stroke handicap.

"One up, Jacques Henri!" she laughed.

She drove another perfect ball on the next hole, but the green was three hundred and fifty yards away and I reached it in two against her three. My work on the green was abominable and we both were down in fives.

"Two up, Jacques Henri!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing with excitement. "Really, now, don't you think I've improved?"

"Improved!" I gasped. "That's not the word for it! You have been translated into a golf magician! I cannot understand it!"

I don't suppose I played my best game, but even if I had I could not have won at the odds stipulated. I never lose interest in a golf game, but I must confess that I paid far more attention to her play than to my own.

It was not the first time that I had witnessed a fine exhibition of golf by a woman, but it was the first time I had been privileged to see a strikingly pretty girl execute shots as they should be made. All former experiences had led me to the belief that feminine beauty and proficiency in golf run in adverse ratio. But here was a superb creature who combined beauty with a skill which was surpassing.

It was difficult to believe the testimony of my own eyes. Here was a girl who had taken fifteen to make the first hole of Woodvale only a few weeks preceding; who had driven eight of my new balls into a pond which demanded only an eighty-yard carry; who had told me that the one ambition of her golfing life was to drive a ball far enough so that she might have difficulty in finding it; who had repeatedly missed strokes entirely, had mutilated the turf, sliced, pulled and committed all the faults and crimes possible to a novice—here was this same young lady playing a game which was well-nigh perfect to the extent of her strength!

When a woman is beautiful and plays a beautiful game of golf, then physical grace reaches its highest exemplification. Even an ugly woman becomes attractive when she swings a driving club with an evenly sustained sweep, picking the ball clean from the turf or tee. But when a supremely charming girl acquires this skill it is impossible to express in mere language the exquisite grace of it—and I am not going to attempt it.

Miss Harding made that round in a flat ninety against my eighty-two, and with the odds I had given her defeated me by five up and four to play. She made the same score as Chilvers, and he is a good player when on his game.

The game ended, we rested in the shade of an arbour where we could watch the players on many greens.

"Come now; make your confession," I insisted, looking into her face through the blue haze of a cigar.

"Confess what?" she innocently asked.

"Confess why it is that you deliberately deceived me regarding your game," I demanded. "Don't you suppose I know that you were not trying to play that day when you first favoured me with a game at Woodvale?"

"You know nothing about it," she laughed. "I have been taking lessons since then."

"Tell that to someone who does not understand the difficulty of learning this game," I responded. "Your father for instance. Unless you confess the truth, I shall tell him that you deliberately lured him into a trap by which you won that touring car."

"Tell him; I dare you!" she challenged me. "If he believes it he will think it a huge joke."

"And you told me that you once made a nine-hole course in Paris in ninety-one," I accused her.

"I did," she laughed. "It was in a competition with one club—a putter."

"Was that when you won the gold cup?"

She shook her head.

"What score did you make when you won that gold cup in Paris?" I asked.



"The witness declines to answer," she defiantly replied.

"You are guilty of contempt of court. Tell me, Miss Harding, why you played so atrociously that day?"

"Atrociously?" she exclaimed with mock indignation. "You told me that I was doing splendidly, and you said that with a little practice I would make a fine player. And now that I have verified your predictions you seem vastly surprised."

"I was—I was trying to encourage you," I faltered.

"In other words you were deceiving me, Jacques Henri. Confess that you were!"

"I do confess," I laughed. "You were the worst player I ever saw. Now you confess why you did it."

"I shall confess nothing," she declared, her eyes dropping as I gazed into them. "I shall confess nothing, Jacques Henri! Since when has it been decreed that a lady must confess to her chauffeur? Do not forget your place, Jacques Henri. Let's start for the club house; I see papa and others on the lawn."

I have a theory of the truth, but it is too foolish to put in writing. We made a speedy run to Woodvale after a most delightful afternoon.



ENTRY NO. XVII

THE PASSING OF PERCY

During the forenoon of the day following our visit to Oak Cliff Mr. Harding, Carter and I were sitting under the big elm tree near the first tee. We had our clubs with us, but the railroad magnate wished to finish his cigar before starting to play.

A farm wagon drove up the circular roadway which surrounds the club house, and the owner after glancing doubtfully about approached us. He was tall, angular, and whiskered.

"Can any of you folks tell me if a man named Hardin' hangs out 'round this here place?" he said, squinting at a card which I instantly recognised.

"I'm Harding," said that gentleman, walking toward him. "I reckon you're the man who owns the late deceased bull?"

"I shurely am," said the farmer, stroking his whiskers nervously.

"How much do you want for him?" demanded Harding, with characteristic promptness.

"Stranger," began the man with the hoe, "if you'll tell me how in thunder you broke the neck of that critter with one of them there sticks," pointing to our golf clubs, "I won't charge you one doggoned cent for doin' it."

We all roared, and then Harding briefly explained what had happened.

"I reckon you couldn't do nothin' else under what the stump speakers call existin' sar-cumstances," slowly drawled the farmer, "but he was a mighty fine young bull, an' I hated like all sin tew lose him."

"How much was he worth to you?" asked Harding.

"He was a Holstein, Mister, and I wouldn't er sold him for two hundred and fifty the best day you ever saw. He took second prize as a yearlin' at our county fair, and I was plumb sure he'd have the blue ribbon hung on him this year, but instead of a ribbon I found this here on his horns," he concluded sorrowfully, looking at the card with its string still attached.

"I'll give you three hundred and fifty dollars and call it square," said Harding.

"Dew you mean it, Mister?" his watery blue eyes opening wide, his thin lips pursed and his leathery face curiously wrinkled. "Dew ye mean it?"

"Of course I mean it, but I want his head. I'm going to have it mounted."

Mr. Harding opened his wallet, stripped off the bills and handed them to the pleased farmer.

"Mister," the latter said, "that's more than he was worth, and I feel kinder ashamed ter take all of it. Tell you what I'll do! I've got an old bull that's no good, but ugly as all get out, and if you'd like ter tackle him with that ortermobill of yours I'll turn him loose in that same medder, an' you can have it out with him an' it won't cost you a cent."



"Much obliged," laughed Harding, "but nature evidently did not design me for a matador."

If Miss Lawrence does not develop into a great player it will not be because of a lack of assiduity in taking lessons. Since Wallace has become professional at Woodmere she has taken one and sometimes two each day. She was starting to take one of these "lessons" when Harding returned.

"See here, Wallace," he said with mock sternness, "I am becoming curious to know if you are professional to our charming young friend or to the club."

"Why, Mr. Harding!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence, blushing furiously. "I have taken only six lessons, and you have no idea how I have improved."

"Without doubt," observed the remorseless millionaire, "but when do I get a lesson? My game has steadily deteriorated since I hit my first ball. As Smith says, I am way off my game."

"I shall be glad to give you a lesson any time to-morrow afternoon, Mr. Harding," said Wallace.

"All right. You and I will play Smith and Carter, and you put me right as we go along."

That was satisfactory all around and Wallace turned his attention to his fair pupil. I wonder if he is as exacting and she as interested at all times as during the few moments they were under our observation?

"A little nearer the ball," he cautioned her. "Grip firmly but keep the wrists flexible. Let the club-head come back naturally. Be sure and keep the weight of your body on the heels and not on the toes. That's better. Try that back swing again. Do not go so far back. Be sure that at the top of the swing your entire weight is on the right leg, and that the knee is not bent. Do not pause at the top of the stroke. Keep the head perfectly still and your eyes on the ball; not on the top of it, but on the exact spot where you propose to hit it. Now make a practise swing."



Miss Lawrence did so, and it seemed almost perfect to me, but Wallace's keen eyes detected faults.

"That right shoulder dropped a little," he said. "That's a bad fault. Let the right shoulder go straight through. Ah, that was a decided improvement! Now swing and keep that right elbow at least four inches from the body. You let your wrists in too soon, Miss Lawrence. Do not start them to work until you are well down on your stroke. That shoulder dropped again! Don't look up as your club goes through; that is a fatal fault. Fall back on those heels! Keep the back straight, or curved back, if at all. Now we will try it with a ball."

Wallace teed a ball and Miss Lawrence drove a very good one for her. It was straight and a trifle high, but it had a carry of fully 120 yards.

"Didn't I tell you I was improving!" she exclaimed, smiling triumphantly at Mr. Harding. "Mr. Wallace is a splendid teacher."

"Yes, and you are a splendid pupil," returned Mr. Harding, with a knowing smile, "but you give me a chance, or I'll lodge a protest with the board of management."

She laughed, waved her hand mockingly at him, and away they went. I noticed that Wallace was not playing. He carried the clubs and they walked close to each other. He said something and she looked up to his face and smiled. It was evident they had much to talk of, and while I cannot prove it, I am inclined to doubt if their conversation was restricted to the details of the game.

Harding watched them, a quiet smile on his strong, kindly, and rugged face. He was humming the air of an old love song.

"Smith," he said after an interval of silence, "there are only two things in this life really worth having."

"What are they?"

"Youth and health."

"How about love?" I asked.

"Youth and health own love," he replied. "Love is their obedient servant. I thank God that I have not lost my youth or my health."

I was privileged to see this remarkable man for a moment in a new light, one which increased my respect and admiration for him.

When we returned to the club house the veranda was buzzing with gossip. Miss Dangerfield was delighted when she found that I was not acquainted with the cause of the excitement. It gave her a chance to impart the news to one ready to listen, and she was not slow in taking advantage of it.

"Miss Lawrence has refused Mr. LaHume!" she whispered, though she might as well have screamed it through a megaphone, since I was the only one on the veranda in ignorance of it.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I dare not tell," she said, but I knew she would. "If you'll promise not to reveal it to a living soul I'll tell you."