he dog, his bare hands
twisting its collar into a tourniquet.

With one impulse Lady Jean and the young officer each snatched a
golf-club and sprang to help him. "Keep off!" he cried. "I can hold him.
Get a strap; we have to keep him alive to find out--_Jean!_ For God's
sake--"

His heart seemed to stand still. Lady Jean had dropped on her knees by
the dog, shielding him from the young officer's club. "Don't," she said;
"_he's_ not mad! It's Mrs. Brooke's dog--Why can't you _see_? The poor
brute's _wagging his tail_!"

"He is," said Willy; "hold up, boys! A mad dog doesn't wag his tail." He
released the tourniquet sufficiently to free a piteous whimper. A second
later he lifted his hand off the dog, which wriggled into Lady Jean's
compassionate arms as a voice announced, "That's not the dog!"

The real mad dog--if mad he were--had been despatched by a single shot
from a soldier's gun, rods away; but a panic-stricken crowd had used the
customary judgment of panic, and pursued the wrong dog.

"And now," wrathfully declared Jabez Rivers to his army cronies, "now
that poor boy has probably put his wrist out of whack; and his father
coming in on the two o'clock train to see him fight for the cup! And
this old fool telegraphed for him to come."

Nevertheless he kept a semblance of confidence. And he has always liked
Dickson because he was so sure Willy would win. He offered to caddy for
Willy; but Willy gratefully declined, because it would break Tommy's
heart; Tommy's mother was coming over to see the game. "He's a real
dead-game sport," Dickson ended, "and a little thing like a spurious
mad dog isn't going to put him out of the running."

Nor did it; Cleaves made up one of his missing holes, but he got no
farther; and at the sixteenth hole Rivers and a small, keen-eyed,
quiet-looking man stood up in a runabout and shouted while the great
Cleaves, bewildered but invincibly courteous, shook hands with Willy
Butler.

"You wait until he has cleaned up a bit" advised Rivers; "give the boy's
girl a chance first--there they are; she's talking to him now."

Mr. Butler knew who she was; she had been pointed out to him before;
possibly having watched her carefully through the progress of the game,
he knew something else, being a man who came to conclusions quickly, on
occasion. He looked at her now; he looked at Rivers; the only words that
escaped his lips--in a very small, low voice--were, "Wouldn't that make
a man believ