Plan of Hillton Academy Golf Links.

Diagram of Second Play.

Diagram of Third Play.

Positions, Harwell _vs_. Yates.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOY IN THE STRAW HAT.

"How's craps, Country?"

"Shut up, Bart! he may hear you."

"What if he does, ninny? I want him to. Say, Spinach!"

"Do you suppose he's going to try and play football, Bart?"

"Not he. He's looking for a rake. Thinks this is a hayfield, Wall."

The speakers were lying on the turf back of the north goal on the campus
at Hillton Academy. The elder and larger of the two was a rather
coarse-looking youth of seventeen. His name was Bartlett Cloud,
shortened by his acquaintances to "Bart" for the sake of that brevity
beloved of the schoolboy. His companion, Wallace Clausen, was a handsome
though rather frail-looking boy, a year his junior. The two were
roommates and friends.

"He'd better rake his hair," responded the latter youth jeeringly. "I'll
bet there's lots of hayseed in it!"

The subject of their derisive remarks, although standing but a scant
distance away, apparently heard none of them.

"Hi, West!" shouted Bartlett Cloud as a youth, attired in a finely
fitting golf costume, and swinging a brassie, approached. The newcomer
hesitated, then joined the two friends.

"Hello! you fellows. What's up? Thought it was golf, from the crowd over
here." He stretched himself beside them on the grass.

"Golf!" answered Bartlett Cloud contemptuously. "I don't believe you
ever think of anything except golf, Out! Do you ever wake up in the
middle of the night trying to drive the pillow out of the window with a
bed-slat?"

"Oh, sometimes," answered Outfield West smilingly. "There's a heap more
sense in being daft over a decent game like golf than in going crazy
about football. It's just a kid's game."

"Oh, is it?" growled Bartlett Cloud. "I'd just like to have you opposite
me in a good stiff game for about five minutes. I'd show you something
about the 'kid's game!'"

"Well, I don't say you couldn't knock me down a few times and walk over
me, but who wants to play such games--except a lot of bullies like
yourself?"

"Plenty of fellows, apparently," answered the third member of the group,
Wallace Clausen, hastening to avert the threatening quarrel. "Just look
around you. I've never seen more fellows turn out at the beginning of
the season than are here to-day. There must be sixty here."

"More like a hundred," grunted "Bart" Cloud, not yet