The Main Chance Part 22

"The Scotch owed us something good," said Evelyn; "they gave us oatmeal for breakfast, and made life unendurable to that extent. But we can forgive them if they take us out of doors and get us away from offices and houses. Our western business men are incorrigible, though. The farther west you go, the more hours a day men put into business."

Evelyn soon sent Wheaton to bring Mrs. Whipple and Annie Warren, who were stranded in a corner, and they became spectators of the pranks of some of the others, who had now gathered about the piano, where Captain Wheelock had undertaken to lead in the singing of popular airs. The singers were not taking their efforts very seriously. All knew some of the words of "Annie Carroll," but none knew all, so that their efforts were marked by scattering good-will rather than by unanimity of knowledge. When one lost the words and broke down, they all laughed in derision. Mabel and Raridan had joined the circle, and Warry entered into the tentative singing with the spirit he always brought to any occasion. Mabel, who imported all the new songs from New York, gave "Don't Throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at the Soda-water Man" as a solo, and did it well--almost too well. Occasionally one of the group at the piano turned to demand that those who lingered by the fireside join in the singing, but Wheaton was shy of this hilarity, and was comfortable in his belief that Evelyn was showing a preference for him in electing to remain aloof. He did not understand that her evident preference was due to a feeling that he was older than the rest and too stiff and formal for their frivolity.

Mrs. Whipple made little effort to talk to Wheaton, though she occasionally threw out some comment on the singers to Evelyn. Wheaton did not amuse Mrs. Whipple. He had only lately dawned on her horizon, and she had already appraised him and filed her impression away in her memory. He was not, she had determined, a complex character; she knew, as perfectly as if he had made a full confession of himself to her, his new ambitions, his increasing conceit and belief in himself. She had been more successful in preventing marriages than in effecting them, and she sat watching him with a quizzical expression in her eyes; for there might be danger in him for this girl, though it had not appeared. But when her eyes rested on Evelyn she seemed to find an answer that allayed her fears; Evelyn was hardly a girl that would need guardians.h.i.+p. As the noise from the group at the piano rose to the crescendo at which it broke into laughing discord, Evelyn met suddenly the gaze with which this old friend had been regarding her, and gave back a nod and smile that were in themselves unconsciously rea.s.suring.

Some one suggested presently that if they were to drive home in the moonlight they should be going; and the coach soon swung away from the door into the moon's floodtide. The wind was still, as if in awe of the lighted world. The town lay far below in a white pool. Mabel again took the reins, and as the coach rumbled and crunched over the road, light hearts had recourse to song; but even the singing was subdued, and the trumpeter's note failed miserably when the horses' hoofs struck smartly on the streets of the town.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LADY AND THE BUNKER

The afternoon invited the eyes to far, blue horizons, and as Evelyn stood up and shook loosely in her hand the sand she had taken from the box, she contemplated the hazy distances with satisfaction before bending to make her tee. Her visitors had left; Grant had gone east to school, and she was driven in upon herself for amus.e.m.e.nt. Her movements were lithe and swift, and when once the ball had been placed in position there were only two points of interest for her in the landscape--the ball itself and the first green. The driver was a part of herself, and she stepped back and swung it to freshen her memory of its characteristics. The caddy watched her in silent joy; these were not the fussy preliminaries that he had been used to in young ladies who played on the Country Club links; he kept one eye on the player and backed off down the course. The sleeves of her crimson flannel s.h.i.+rt-waist were turned up at the wrists; the loose end of her cravat fluttered in the soft wind, that was like a breath of mid-May. She addressed the ball, standing but slightly bent above it and glancing swiftly from tee to target, then swung with the certainty and ease of the natural golf player. Her first ball was a slice, but it fell seventy-five yards down the course; she altered her position slightly and tried again, but she did not hit the ball squarely, and it went bounding over the gra.s.s. At the third attempt her ball was caught fairly and sped straight down the course at a level not higher than her head. The caddy trotted to where it lay; it was on a line with the one hundred and fifty yard mark. The player motioned him to get the other b.a.l.l.s. She had begun her game.

The fever was as yet in its incipient stage in Clarkson; players were few; the greens were poorly kept, and there were bramble patches along the course which were of material benefit to the golf ball makers. But it was better than nothing, John Saxton said to himself this bright October afternoon, as he stood at the first tee, listening to the cheerful discourse of his caddy, who lingered to study the equipment of a visitor whom he had not served before.

"Anybody out?" asked John, trying the weight of several drivers.

"Lady," said the boy succinctly. He pointed across the links to where Evelyn was distinguishable as she doubled back on the course.

"Good player?"

"Great--for a girl," the boy declared. "She's the best lady player here."

"Maybe we can pick up some points from her game," said Saxton, smiling at the boy's enthusiasm. He had been very busy and much away from town, and this was his first day of golf since he had come to Clarkson.

Raridan had declined to accompany him; Raridan was, in fact, at work just now, having been for a month constant in attendance upon his office; and Saxton had left him barricaded behind a pile of law books.

Saxton was slow in his golf, as in all things, and he gave a good deal of study to his form. He played steadily down the course, noting from time to time the girl that was the only other occupant of the links. She was playing toward him on the parallel course home, and while he had not recognized her, he could see that she was a player of skill, and he paused several times to watch the freedom of her swing and to admire the pretty picture she made as she followed her ball rapidly and with evident absorption.

He was taking careful measurement for a difficult approach shot from the highest gra.s.s on the course, when he heard men calling and shouting in the road which ran by one of the boundary fences of the club property. A drove of cattle was coming along the road, driven, as Saxton saw, by several men on horseback. It was a small bunch bound for the city.

Several obstreperous steers showed an inclination to bolt at the crossroads, but the hors.e.m.e.n brought them back with much yelling and a great shuffling of hoofs which sent a cloud of dust into the quiet air.

Saxton bent again with his lofter, when his caddy gave a cry.

"Hi! He's making for the gate!"

One of the steers had bolted and plunged down the side road toward the gate of the club grounds, which stood open through the daytime.

"You'd better trot over there and close the gate," said Saxton, seeing that the cattle were excited.

The boy ran for the gate, which lay not more than a hundred yards distant, and the steer which had broken away and been reclaimed with so much difficulty in the roadway bolted for it at almost the same moment.

Saxton, seeing that a collision was imminent, began trotting toward the gate himself. The steer could not see the boy who was racing for the gate from the inside, and boy and beast plunged on toward it.

"Run for the fence," called Saxton.

The boy gained the fence and clambered to the top of it. The steer reached the gate, and, seeing open fields beyond, bounded in and made across the golf course at full speed. He dashed past Saxton, who stopped and watched him, his club still in his hand. The steer seemed pleased to have gained access to an ampler area, and loped leisurely across the links. Evelyn, manoeuvering to escape a bunker that lay formidably before her, had not yet seen the animal and was not aware of the invasion of the course until her caddy, who, expecting one of her long plays, had posted himself far ahead, came plunging over the bunker's ridge with a clatter of bag and clubs. The steer, following him with an amiable show of interest, paused at the bunker and viewed the boy and the young woman in the red s.h.i.+rt-waist uneasily. One of the drovers was in hot pursuit, galloping across the course toward the runaway member of his herd, lariat in hand. Hearing an enemy in the rear, the steer broke over the lightly packed barricade, and Evelyn's red s.h.i.+rt-waist proving the most brilliant object on the horizon, he made toward it at a lively pace.

The caddy was now in full flight, pulling the strap of Evelyn's bag over his head and scattering the clubs as he fled. A moment later he had joined Saxton's caddy on top of the fence and the two boys viewed current history from that point with absorption. Meanwhile Evelyn was making no valiant stand. She gave a gasp of dismay and turned and ran, for the drover was pus.h.i.+ng the steer rapidly now, and was getting ready to cast his lariat. He made a botch of it, however, and at the instant of the rope's flight, his pony, poorly trained to the business, bucked and tried to unseat his rider; and the drover swore volubly as he tried to control him. The pony backed upon a putting green and bucked again, this time dislodging his rider. Before the dazed drover could recover, Saxton, who had run up behind him, sprang to the pony's head, and as the animal settled on all fours again, leaped into the saddle and gathered up bridle and lariat. The pony suddenly grew tired of making trouble, in the whimsical way of his kind, and Saxton impelled him at a rapid lope toward the steer. John was bareheaded and the sleeves of his outing s.h.i.+rt were rolled to the elbows; he looked more like a polo player than a cowboy.

Meanwhile Evelyn was running toward a bunker which stood across her path; it was the only break in the level of the course that offered any hope of refuge. She could hear the pounding of the steer's hoofs, and less distinctly the pattering hoofbeat of the pony. She had had a long run and was breathing hard. The bunker seemed the remotest thing in the world as she ran down the course; then suddenly it rose a mile high, and as she scaled its rough slope and sank breathlessly into the sand, Saxton cast the lariat. With mathematical nicety the looped rope cut the air and the noose fell about the broad horns of the Texan as his fore feet struck the bunker. The pony stood with firmly planted hoofs, supporting the taut rope as steadfastly as a rock. The owner of the pony came panting up, and another of the drovers who had ridden into the arena joined them.

"Here's your cow," said Saxton. The steer was, indeed, any one's for the taking, as he was winded and the spirit had gone out of him. "You won't need another rope on him; he'll follow the pony."

"You threw that rope all right," said the dismounted drover.

"An old woman taught me with a clothes line," said John, kicking his feet out of the stirrups; "take your pony."

"Where's that girl?" asked one of the men.

"I guess she's all right," answered Saxton, walking toward the bunker.

"You'd better get your cow out of here; this isn't free range, you know."

He mounted the bunker with a jump and looked anxiously down into the sand-pit.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Saxton. You see I'm bunkered. Is it safe to come out?"

"Is it you, Miss Porter?" said Saxton, jumping down into the sand. "Are you hurt?"

"No; but I'll not say that I'm not scared." She was still panting from her long run, and her cheeks were scarlet. She put up her hands to her hair, which had tumbled loose. "This is really the wild West, after all; and that was a very pretty throw you made."

"It seemed necessary to do something. But you couldn't have seen it?"

"Another case of woman's curiosity. Perhaps I ought to turn into a pillar of salt. I peeped! I suppose it was in the hope that I might play hide and seek with that wild beast as he came over after me, but you stopped his flight just in time." She had restored her hair as she talked. "Where is that caddy of mine?"

"Oh, the boys took to the fence to get a better view of the show.

They're coming up now."

Evelyn stood up quickly, and shook her skirt free of sand.

"I need hardly say that I'm greatly obliged to you," she said, giving him her hand.

Saxton was relieved to find that she took the incident so coolly.

She was laughing; her color was very becoming, and John beamed upon her.

His face was of that blond type which radiates light and flushes into a kind of sunburn with excitement. There was something very boyish about John Saxton. The curves of his face were still those of youth; he had never dared to encourage a mustache or beard, owing to a disinclination to produce more than was necessary of the soft, silky hair which covered his head abundantly. He had a straight nose, a firm chin and a brave showing of square, white teeth. His mouth was his best feature, for it expressed his good nature and a wish to be pleased,--a wish that shone also in his blue eyes. John Saxton was determined to like life and people; and he liked both just now.

"Are you entirely sound? Won't you have witch-hazel, arnica, brandy?"

"Oh, thanks; nothing. I've got my breath again and am all right."

"But they always sprain their ankles."

"Yes, but I'm not a romantic young person. I'll be sorry if that caddy has lost my best driver."

"He's out on the battlefield now looking for it," said John, indicating their two caddies, who were gathering up the lost implements.

"I think you're away," John added, musingly.