John Henry Smith Part 27

"We are ent.i.tled 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 gra.s.s. 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 _Artic.u.m Lappa_. It is a beauty!"

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

"The _Artic.u.m 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What are you looking for?"]

On the next hole their drives landed the b.a.l.l.s 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 b.a.l.l.s.

"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 b.a.l.l.s around a cleared s.p.a.ce 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Had ignited the matches"]

"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 b.a.l.l.s. I called to Powers to keep his nerve. The b.a.l.l.s were rubber-cored, and I widened the crack in one of them and gouged out a s.p.a.ce 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 sh.o.r.e 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.