But it is clear to me that the golfer who wishes to go golfing, and at
the same time to live the richest and most adventurous life of the
traveller, needs to take himself abroad and roam from course to course
in Eastern and Central America. He will encounter many incidents that
will interest and enliven him, as did the four eminent British
professionals who some time since made a golfing expedition from here in
the winter-time in search of Mexican treasure--dollars that were offered
in open competition at San Pedro. They told me a great tale of their
adventures on their return, and, as I have reason to believe, a strictly
accurate one. Andrew Kirkaldy, Alexander Herd, Jack White, and Rowland
Jones were the treasure-hunters, and dashing fellows they seemed as they
boarded a special express at New York. Having started thence at five
minutes to eleven one Wednesday morning, the train reached St. Louis at
1.30 on Thursday, having been much delayed by a wreck on the Wabash in
which fourteen persons were killed and injured. This news added greatly
to the discomfort of the four British golfers. They lunched at the
Planters’ Hotel, went round the city, saw a performance at the theatre,
and boarded the train again at half-past eight in the evening.
Thereafter Messrs. Kirkaldy, Herd, White, and Jones were brought to
realise some of the possibilities of travelling in through trains along
the American Continent. They were in the last car of the train, and
after the journey had been resumed about half an hour, there was a
negative kind of happening in the form of a gradual slowing down and
then a final stop of the train--or rather, as it proved, of the
carriage. After waiting a little while in patience the party put their
heads out of the window, and then they came to realise the horrible
truth. Their carriage had become uncoupled, and the train had gone on
and left them! Here was a state of things! There was no other train to
get them through in time. Hundreds of pounds were to be picked up at
San Pedro, and they would not be there to pick them up as they had
intended. The prizes would have been a gift for them, and either “Andra”
or Rowland Jones would have become an open champion of sorts at last.
When these thoughts had chased each other through the minds of the great
British quartette for half an hour, someone got up aloft, and, like the
widow Twankey--or Sister Anne was it?--in the pantomime, said that he
thought he saw something coming. Immediately afterwards he confessed he
was mistaken, but he had scarcely admitted the mistake when the original
statement was renewed with vigour. There _was_ something, and eventually
it was made out as a railway train. The four great British golfers were
saved for Mexico, and they would yet win championships and dollars--at
least they might do, as they might now prefer to put it. It seemed that
after the train had parted company with its last carriage, in about a
quarter of an hour somebody in the moving section happened to notice the
circumstance, and remarked that it was rather curious that a carriage
should be left down the line in that manner, and that there should be no
fuss made. The matter being reported to the officials on the train they
decided to put back and see if they could find the carriage containing,
among others, the party of four great British golfers. As we have
already seen, they did so. Then the whole train moved on again towards
Mexico, and “Andra” went to sleep in his berth dreaming, perhaps, of the
old course at home and of his doing the home hole in 2.
The four British golfers found things rather dull for the next two days,
for nothing in particular happened while they were running through
fifteen hundred miles of woods and prairie. On Saturday morning they got
out of the train at San Antonio, Texas, in time for breakfast, and the
same evening they reached Laredo, the Mexican border, where their
luggage was examined. Spanish being the prevailing language, this
process proved rather troublesome, especially as the officials had
varying and peculiar views as to the goods on which duty should be paid.
Some of the party had to pay it on their golf clubs, and others escaped.
The train had hardly got going again when it was pulled up on account of
an obstruction in front, and it was three hours before a further advance
was made, the impediment being a freight-train which had run off the
track. By this time Kirkaldy was sighing for a ride on the North
British, and White was hoping that he might be allowed the privilege of
making his last journey on earth on the beautiful South-Western. But
there was more adventure to come.
The four great British golfers had heard awful tales of Mexicans and
what they were capable of, but they understood the place was more
civilised now--must be, as there was golf there. In the dead of night,
while the famous quartette were wrapped in slumber, when White found
himself back on to his drive, when Herd had nothing but good luck for a
whole season, when Jones was pipping one Braid for the championship
nearly every time, and when the fourth of the party of British golfers
was doing a round on the links in Elysium in eighteen under par--there
were robbers going through the car! They were real robbers, such as are
commonly found on these trains in these parts. They went through the
train “in the most approved style,” as it was said of them, and before
the first streaks of the Mexican dawn had lit up the sky there were many
men in that golfing train who were much poorer than when they went to
sleep. One of the Boston amateurs going to the same tournament lost six
hundred dollars, his gold watch, and trunk checks, and several others
found that various sums of money belonging to them had disappeared. And
how fared the four British golfers? Was it for fear of him, for respect,
or for admiration, that the Mexican robber did not concern himself at
all with the great British golfer? In due course they landed at Mexico
City on Monday morning. The four British golfers were much impressed by
the peculiar dress of the Mexicans, which they even found to be affected
by the caddies. Andrew spoke a few preliminary words of greeting to the
boys, but they only smiled, not understanding Scotch. But they showed a
strong disposition to be good friends, an attitude which, as was
subsequently discovered, was not entirely because they were great
golfers. Caddies are much the same the wide world over. Of the further
pursuit of the treasure by the four great British golfers, and of their
many disappointments, the story has been already told.