“I guess we can play it off before the storm hits us,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, and for the first time Mr. Wellaway noticed the black clouds piling up in the west. They started the nineteenth hole with a rush of wind whirling the dust from the road across the course, and before they had walked to where their balls lay after their drives, the forward edge of the storm-clouds, low, ragged, and an ugly yellow, was full over them, and a glare of lightning, followed by a tremendous crash, blinded them both. Mr. Wellaway’s host threw his bag of clubs on the grass as though it were red hot, and started at a full run for the club-house. Mr. Wellaway followed him.
Except for the steward and his wife, the club-house was already deserted, the last automobile tearing down the club roadway as Mr. Wellaway reached the veranda. The lightning exceeded anything Mr. Wellaway had ever seen, and crash followed crash in deafening explosions, as though the electrical storm had centered near the club-house. A fair-sized hickory-tree, half dead from the depredations of the hickory-bark beetle, fell crashing across the sleeping-room annex of the club-house. For half an hour after the rain began to fall in sheets the lightning continued, while Mr. Wellaway and his host stared at the storm through the windows of the club-house; but about six o’clock the worst of the storm had passed on, and the rain had become a steady, heavy downpour.
“There’s one thing sure,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host: “there’s no going home for you to-night.”
“But I must go home,” said Mr. Wellaway.
“If you must, of course you must,” said his host; “but there would be no sense in going in this rain. We will have dinner right here. I suppose you can get us up a couple of chops or something?”
“Yes, sir,” said the steward, who had returned from a survey of his sleeping-quarters. “Chops or steak.”
“Then I’ll just ’phone my wife that I’ll not be home,” said Mr. Wellaway’s host, and he entered the telephone-booth. In a few minutes he came out again. “Can’t get central,” he said with annoyance. “The thing is either cut off or burned out. Probably a tree has fallen across the wires. I hate to drag you out through all this rain, but my wife will be distracted if I don’t get home. She’ll imagine I’m killed. You will have to come home with me and take pot-luck.”
Drawn by Henry Raleigh
“VERY GENTLY MR. WELLAWAY RAISED THE LETTERS FROM THE POCKET JUST AS HE HEARD THE RUBBER-SOLED SHOES TOUCH THE ZINC TREADS OF THE STAIRS”