IV

I see no reason for inflicting upon you a detailed description of the

next fifteen holes of golfing frightfulness. Golf is a game which

requires mental calm, and the contestants were entirely out of calmness

after the second hole and could not concentrate on their shots.

Windy began driving all over the shop, hooking and slicing tremendously,

and Kitts manhandled his irons in a manner fit to make a hardened

professional weep. Neither of them could have holed a five-foot putt in

a washtub, and they staggered along side by side, silent and nervous and

savage, and if Windy managed to win a hole Kitts would be sure to take

the next one and square the match. But he didn't take any holes with the

book. When Windy broke a rule--which he did every little while--Kitts

would sneer and pretend to look the other way. He tried to convey the

impression that it was pity and contempt that made him blind to Windy's

lapses, but he didn't fool me for a minute. It was fear of consequences.

And so they came to the last hole, all square, and also all in.

Our eighteenth has a vicious reputation among those golfing unfortunates

who slice their tee shots. The drive must carry a steep hill, the right

slope of which pitches away to a deep, narrow ravine--a ravine scarred

and marred by thousands of niblick shots, but otherwise as disgusted

Nature left it. We call it Hell's Half Acre, though the first part of

the name would be quite sufficient.

The only improvements that have ever been made in this sinister locality

have been made by golf clubs, despairingly wielded. Hell's Half Acre is

full of stunted trees with roots half out of the ground, and thick brush

and matted weeds, and squarely in the middle of this desolation is a

deep sink, or pit, known as the Devil's Kitchen. Hell's Half Acre is bad

enough, believe one who knows, but the Devil's Kitchen is the last hard

word in hazards, and it is a crime to allow such a plague spot within a

mile of a golf course.

At a respectful distance we watched the renegades drive from the

eighteenth tee. Kitts had the honour--if there is any honour in winning

a four hole in eight strokes--and messed about over his ball even longer

than usual. His drive developed a lovely curve to the right, and went

skipping and bounding down the hill toward the ravine.

"And that'll be in the Kitchen unless something stops it!" said Cupid

with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid the blighters might halve this one

and need extra holes!"

Now with Adolphus in the Devil's Kitchen all Windy needed was a straight

ball over the brow of the hill--in fact, a ball anywhere on the course

would be almost certain to win the hole and the match--but when he

walked out on the tee it was plain to be seen that he had lost

confidence in his wooden club. Any golfer knows what it means to lose

confidence in his wood, and Windy had reason to doubt his driver. His

tee shots had been fearfully off direction, and here was one that _had_

to go straight.

He teed his ball, swung his club a couple of times, and shook his head.

Then he yelled at his caddie.

"Oh, boy! Bring me my cleek!"

Now, a cleek is a wonderful club if a man knows how to use one, but it

produces a low tee shot, as a general thing. It produced one for

Windy--a screamer, flying with the speed of a rifle bullet. I thought at

first that it was barely going to clear the top of the hill, but I

misjudged it. Three feet higher and the ball would have been over, but

it struck the ground and kicked abruptly to the right, disappearing in

the direction of the Devil's Kitchen. We heard a crashing noise. It was

Windy splintering his cleek shaft over the tee box.

"Both down!" ejaculated Cupid. "Suffering St. Andrew, what a finish!"

We arrived on the rim of the Kitchen and peered into that wild

amphitheatre. Kitts had already found his ball, and was staring at it

with an expression of dumb anguish on his face. It was lying underneath

a tangle of sturdy oak roots, as safely protected as if an octopus was

trying to hatch something out of it.

Windy was combing the weeds which grew on the abrupt sides of the pit,

too full of his own trouble to pay any attention to his opponent.

"If it's a lost ball----" said Cupid.

But it wasn't. Windy found it, half-way up the left slope, hidden in the

weeds, and not a particularly bad lie except for the fact that nothing

human could have taken a stance on that declivity. Having found his

ball, Windy took a look at Kitts's lie and then, for the first and only

time in his golfing career, Wilkins recognised the rules of the game.

"You're away, sir," said he to Kitts. "Play!"

Adolphus took his niblick and attacked the octopus. His first three

strokes did not even jar the ball, but they damaged the oak roots beyond

repair. On his eighth attempt the ball popped out of its nest, and the

next shot was a very pretty one, sailing up and out to the fair green,

but there was no applause from the gallery.

"Countin' the drive," said Windy, "that makes ten, eh?"

A man may play nine strokes in a hazard, but he hates to admit it.

Adolphus grunted and withdrew to the other side of the pit, from which

point he watched Windy morosely. With victory in sight the latter became

cheerful again; conversation bubbled out of him.

"Boy, slip me the niblick and get up yonder on the edge of the ravine

where you can watch this ball. I'm goin' to knock it a mile out of here.

Ten shots he's had. If it was me, I'd give up. How am I to get a

footin' on this infernal side hill? Spikes won't hold in that stuff.

Wish I was a goat. Aha! The very thing!"

Suddenly he delivered a powerful blow at the slope some distance below

his ball and three or four feet to the left of it. Cupid gasped and

opened his mouth to say something, but I nudged him and he subsided,

clucking like a nervous hen.

"What's the idea?" demanded Kitts.

"To make little boys ask questions," was the calm reply. "I climbed the

Alps once. Had to dig holes for my feet. Guess I haven't forgotten how,

but diggin' with a blasted niblick is hard work."

"Oh!" said Kitts.

Windy continued to hack at the wall, the gallery looking on in tense

silence. Nobody would have offered a suggestion; we all felt that it was

their own affair, and on the knees of the gods, as the saying is. When

Windy had hacked out a place for his right foot he cut another one for

his left. The weeds were tough and the soil was hard, and he grunted as

he worked.

"Yep--that Alps trip--taught me something. Comes in--handy now. Pretty

nifty--job, hey?"

I suppose a mountain climber would have called it a nifty job. Cupid

began to mutter.

"Be quiet!" said I. "Let's see if Kitts has nerve enough to call it on

him!"

With the shaft of his niblick in his teeth, Windy swarmed up the side

of the wall, found the footholds and planted himself solidly. Grasping a

bush above his head with his left hand, he measured the distance with

his eye, steadied himself and swung the niblick with his powerful right

arm. It was a wonderful shot, even if Windy Wilkins did make it; the

ball went soaring skyward, far beyond all trouble.

"_Some--out!_" he panted, looking over his shoulder at Kitts. "I guess

that'll clinch the match!"

For just a second Adolphus hesitated; then he must have thought of the

cup. "I rather think it will," said he. "You're nicely out, Wilkins--in

forty-seven strokes."

"Forty-seven devils!" shouted Windy. "I'm out _in two_!"

"In a hazard," quoted Kitts, "the club shall not touch the ground, nor

shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the

ball." At this point Adolphus made a serious mistake; he reached for the

book. "Under the rule," he continued, "I could claim the hole on you,

but I won't do that. I'll only count the strokes you took in chopping a

stance for yourself----"

That was where Windy dropped the niblick and jumped at him, and Cupid

was correct about the coyote. Put him in a hole where he can't get out,

attack him hard enough, and he _will_ fight.

Adolphus dropped the book and nailed Windy on the chin with a right

upper cut that jarred the whole Wilkins family.

"Keep out of it, everybody!" yelled Cupid with a sudden flash of

inspiration. "It's an elimination contest! More power to both of

'em--and may they both lose!"

Inside of two seconds the whole floor of the Devil's Kitchen was

littered up with fists and elbows and boots and knees. They fought into

clinches and battered their way out of them; they tripped over roots and

scrambled to their feet again; they tossed all rules to the winds except

the rule of self-preservation. The air was full of heartfelt grunts and

sounds as of some one beating a rag carpet, and the language which

floated to us was--well, elemental, to say the least. And through it all

the gallery looked down in decent silence; there was no favourite for

whom any one cared to cheer.

When Windy came toiling up out of the pit alone, but one remark was

addressed to him.

"Aren't you going to play it out?" asked Cupid.

"Huh?" said Windy, pausing. His coat was torn off his back, his soiled

white trousers were out at the knees, his nose was bleeding freely, and

his mouth was lopsided.

"Aren't you going to finish the match? You've only played 46. Kitts made

a mistake in the count."

"Finish--hell!" snarled Windy. "You roosted up here like a lot of

buzzards and let me chop myself out of the contest! I feel like

finishin' the lot of you, and I'm through with any club that'll let a

swine like Kitts be a member!"

Oddly enough, this last statement was substantially the same as the one

Adolphus made when he recovered consciousness.

The wily Cupid, concealing from each the intentions of the other, and

becoming a bearer of pens, ink, and paper, managed to secure both their

resignations before they left the clubhouse that evening, and peace now

reigns at the Country Club.

We have been given to understand that in the future the committee on

membership will require gilt-edged certificates of character and that no

rough diamonds need apply.

Nobody won the handicap cup, and nobody knows what to do with it, though

there is some talk of having it engraved as follows:

"Elimination Trophy--won by W. W. Wilkins, knockout, one round."