of seats, even Rivers' invitation to a
place by him in his runabout. She was going to walk; one could see
better walking. Which was entirely correct, but was not her most
intimate reason; in truth she could not endure to be sitting at her ease
while Willy, footsore and weary, would be doggedly tramping after his
ball. He presented rather a grotesque figure, did Willy, that eventful
morning, being shod as to his sound foot with one of his own neat golf
shoes, but as to his left (thanks to the ministrations of Rivers), with
one of the latter's ample slippers over swathings of bandage soaked in
healing-lotion. Every caddy on the ground (except Willy's) was in
secret ecstasies over his appearance. "We ain't out for a beauty prize,
but the champeen golf cup," says the faithful Tommy haughtily. "Yes,
that's a bottle of liniment. I wet him up with it between whiles. He's
in terrible agony. But he don't mind long's he can keep limber. And say,
jest git onto our game, will you? Two up, and first round over."

Tommy and Jean were waiting when the first round ended, Rivers having
taken the Brookes to the luncheon-tent to secure seats for them all. The
game that morning had surprised all but the newspaper men and the few
who had followed Willy the day before. The only hope of the friends of
the champion lay in the possible exhaustion of the lame wonder whose
unerring approaches were even more dangerous than his drives and his
putts. "If his foot holds out," Rivers said to Brooke, "he's got the
cup."

And at this very moment, as if fate conspired against Willy's chances, a
frightful commotion arose. Willy, talking to Jean a moment about the
game, could see the gay groups outside the white tent scatter in violent
agitation with waving hands; could hear an uproar of shouts and screams.
There came a quick change in Lady Jean's face, in every face near--the
caddy's, the young red-jacketed officer's at the blackboard, the women's
faces in a passing carriage. At first no intelligible sound penetrated
the din; but in a thought's time a blood-curdling cry tore out of a
score of throats, "Mad dog! Mad dog!" as men with golf-irons and
pistols, raced toward the little group on the links, after a
foam-flecked, glaring-eyed, panting little beast. The creature made
straight for Tommy, who fled like a deer; but his foot hit the marker,
and he stumbled and fell. It seemed in the same eyeblink that the dog
was on the child and Willy Butler was on t