Away down to the right of the sycamore trees a single figure topped the brow of the hill and stalked along the sky line. There was no mistaking the long, thin legs or the stiff swing with which they moved.
"Walks like a pair of spavined sugar tongs," was Waddles' comment. "You can tell Pete Miller as far as you can see him."
A second figure shot suddenly into view—the figure of a small, nervous man who brandished a golf club and danced from sheer excess of emotion, but even at three hundred yards it was evident that there was no joy in that dance. Waddles chuckled.
"Bet you anything you like," said he, "that Sam Totten sliced his tee shot into the apricot orchard. He's played about four by now—and they're cutthroating it on the drink hole, same as they always do.... About time for Jumbo to be putting in an appearance."
While he was speaking a tremendous form loomed large on the sky line, dwarfing Miller and Totten. Once on level ground this giant struck a rolling gait and rapidly overhauled his companions—overhauled them in spite of two hundred and sixty pounds and an immense paunch which swayed from side to side as he walked.
"Little Jumbo," said Waddles, sinking back in his chair. "Little Jumbo, with his bag of clubs tucked under his left arm—one driver and all of three irons. He carries that awful load because his doctor tells him he ought to reduce. And he eats four pieces of apple pie à la mode with his lunch. But a fine old fellow at that.... Well, I notice it's still a threesome."
"Notice again," said the Bish, pointing to the left of the sycamores.
Waddles looked, and rose from his chair with a grunt of amazement. A fourth figure came dragging itself up the slope of the hill—the particular portion of the slope of the hill where the deepest trouble is visited upon a sliced second shot. Judging by his appearance and manner this fourth golfer had been neck-deep in grief, to say nothing of cactus and manzanita. His head was hanging low on his breast, his shoulders were sagging, his feet were shuffling along the ground, and he trailed a golf club behind him. When a man trails a club to the eighteenth putting green it is a sure sign that all is over but the shouting; and the wise observer will do his shouting in a whisper. Waddles sat down suddenly.
"Well, as I live and breathe and run the Yavapai Golf and Country Club!" he ejaculated, "there's my old friend, Mr. Peacock, with all his tail feathers pulled out! The deserter has joined the colours again, and the Old Guard is recruited to full war strength once more! They've actually taken him back, after the way he's acted, too! Now what do you think of that, eh?"
"If you ask me," said the Bish in his booming chest notes, "I'd say it was just a case of similia similibus curantur."