"Anybody out?" asked John, trying the weight of several drivers.
"Lady," said the boy succinctly. He pointed across the links to where Evelyn was distinguishable as she doubled back on the course.
"Good player?"
"Great—for a girl," the boy declared. "She's the best lady player here."
"Maybe we can pick up some points from her game," said Saxton, smiling at the boy's enthusiasm. He had been very busy and much away from town, and this was his first day of golf since he had come to Clarkson. Raridan had declined to accompany him; Raridan was, in fact, at work just now, having been for a month constant in attendance upon his office; and Saxton had left him barricaded behind a pile of law books. Saxton was slow in his golf, as in all things, and he gave a good deal of study to his form. He played steadily down the course, noting from time to time the girl that was the only other occupant of the links. She was playing toward him on the parallel course home, and while he had not recognized her, he could see that she was a player of skill, and he paused several times to watch the freedom of her swing and to admire the pretty picture she made as she followed her ball rapidly and with evident absorption.
He was taking careful measurement for a difficult approach shot from the highest grass on the course, when he heard men calling and shouting in the road which ran by one of the boundary fences of the club property. A drove of cattle was coming along the road, driven, as Saxton saw, by several men on horseback. It was a small bunch bound for the city. Several obstreperous steers showed an inclination to bolt at the crossroads, but the horsemen brought them back with much yelling and a great shuffling of hoofs which sent a cloud of dust into the quiet air. Saxton bent again with his lofter, when his caddy gave a cry.
"Hi! He's making for the gate!"
One of the steers had bolted and plunged down the side road toward the gate of the club grounds, which stood open through the daytime.
"You'd better trot over there and close the gate," said Saxton, seeing that the cattle were excited.
The boy ran for the gate, which lay not more than a hundred yards distant, and the steer which had broken away and been reclaimed with so much difficulty in the roadway bolted for it at almost the same moment. Saxton, seeing that a collision was imminent, began trotting toward the gate himself. The steer could not see the boy who was racing for the gate from the inside, and boy and beast plunged on toward it.