He made a fair drive over the marsh on his third hole, flubbed his second and third shots, but his fourth was a screaming brassie which landed him on the green within two inches of the cup.  It was one of those freak shots which a man makes once a season, but Harding took vast credit for it and was the happiest person on the links over his bogy five for this long hole.

Miss Harding was playing like a veteran.  This hole is 355 yards from the tee, but she was well on the green on her third, and holed out in six.  Carter did the same, but I got a five and saved the hole for our side.

I do not know how to account for Miss Harding’s improved playing.  It was not in the least like that of the day when we were alone.  For the entire eighteen holes she played steady, consistent golf.  It was not brilliant, but it was a creditable exhibition for a woman.  She kept on the course, missed only two drives, and rarely failed to get distance and direction.

Not until we had played half-way around and Harding was hopelessly behind did he give voice to his amazement.

“This is the time you have got the old man down and out, Kid,” he said, after she had made the ninth hole in four to his fourteen.  “I’ll admit that there is a trick about this game that I’m not on to, but you just wait; you just wait.  I seem to hit ’em all right, but confound ’em, they don’t go right.  I don’t understand it.  I’d have bet a million dollars against a perfecto cigar that I could drive a ball farther than a 125-pound girl, even if she is my daughter.”

“We will call our bet off, Mr. Harding,” I suggested, satisfied that we had tumbled him from the pedestal reared by his conceit.

“We’ll call nothing off,” he promptly declared.  “Soak it to me as hard as you can; I’ll get even with all of you before the season’s over.”

No language can describe the game played by the railway magnate.  His miserable playing was supplemented by worse luck.  A predatory cow swallowed his ball.  He drove another one into the crotch of a tree, hit Carter in the shin, broke a window in the club house, tore his trousers, sprained his thumb, and poisoned his hands with ivy while searching for a lost ball.  He conversed much with himself when Miss Harding was not near.

The nicks in his club by which he kept score became so numerous, and they so weakened the shaft, that he finally broke it; also one of the commandments.

The story of his calamities and of his undoing is feebly indicated by his score, which was as follows: 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Out—­ 19 11 5 7 12 9 8 16 14—­101
In—–­ 8 6 10 5 7 7 11 5 12—­ 71
—–­
Total —­172

Miss Harding made it in 116, and with a reasonable amount of luck I am sure she would have done much better.  I played a rattling good game, completing the round in 80, which is the best score I have made this season.