espair--"quit golf and never lift another club. It's a crime
to go on; it's a crime to spoil such a record. Twenty-eight for nine
holes, only forty-two needed for the next nine to break the record, and
I have done it in thirty-three--and in fifty-three! I ought not to try;
it's wrong."

He teed his ball for the two-hundred-yard flight to the easy tenth, and
took his cleek.

"I know just what'll happen now; I know it well."

But this time there was no varying in the flight; the drive went true to
the green, straight on the flag, where a good but not difficult put
brought a two.

"Even threes again," said Pickings, but to himself. "It can't go on. It
must turn."

"Now, Pickings, this is going to stop," said Booverman angrily. "I'm not
going to make a fool of myself. I'm going right up to the tee, and I'm
going to drive my ball right smack into the woods and end it. And I
don't care."

"What!"

"No, I don't care. Here goes."

Again his drive continued true, the mashy pitch for the second was
accurate, and his put, after circling the rim of the cup, went down for
a three.

The twelfth hole is another dip into the long grass that might serve as
an elephant's bed, and then across the Housatonic River, a carry of one
hundred and twenty yards to the green at the foot of an intruding tree.

"Oh, I suppose I'll make another three here, too," said Booverman,
moodily. "That'll only make it worse."

He drove with his midiron high in the air and full on the flag.

"I'll play my put carefully for three," he said, nodding his head.
Instead, it ran straight and down for two.

He walked silently to the dreaded thirteenth tee, which, with the
returning fourteenth, forms the malignant Scylla and Charybdis of the
course. There is nothing to describe the thirteenth hole. It is not
really a golf-hole; it is a long, narrow breathing spot, squeezed by the
railroad tracks on one side and by the river on the other. Resolute and
fearless golfers often cut them out entirely, nor are ashamed to
acknowledge their terror. As you stand at the thirteenth tee, everything
is blurred to the eye. Near by are rushes and water, woods to the left
and right; the river and the railroad; and the dry land a hundred yards
away looks tiny and distant, like a rock amid floods.

A long drive that varies a degree is doomed to go out of bounds or to
take the penalty of the river.

"Don't risk it. Take an iron--play it carefully," said Pickings in a