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.”

[Illustration:  “It struck on the near edge of the green”]

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?