Petroleum industry and trade -- Texas -- Fiction; Texas -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction
A highly enthusiastic "gallery" accompanied the pair, a crowd composed
not only of spectators, but also of officials, defeated players,
newspaper writers, camera men, caddies, and the like. They streamed up
the final fairway behind the gladiators and for the moment they were
enveloped in gloom, for Herring had sliced off the seventeenth tee and
a marvelous recovery, together with a good approach, had still left his
ball on the edge of the green, while McLeod, man of iron, had laid his
third shot within three feet of the flag. It meant a sure four for the
latter, with not less than a five for Herring. One of those golfing
miracles, a forty-foot putt, would halve the match, to be sure, but in
tournament golf miracles have a way of occurring on any except the
deciding hole.
Sympathy usually follows the amateur, therefore it was a silent throng
that ranged itself about the gently undulating expanse of velvet sod in
the shadow of the east wing. Herring had played a wonderful match; he
stood for all that is clean and fine in golf. The end of the balcony
was jammed; nearly every window framed eager faces; amid a breathless
intensity of interest the youthful contender tested the turf with the
head of his club and studied the run of the green. A moment, then he
took his stance and swung his putter smoothly. The ball sped away,
taking a curving course, and followed by five hundred pairs of eyes. It
ran too swiftly! Herring, in desperation, had overplayed! But no--it
lost momentum as it topped a rise, then gathered speed, all but died at
the edge of the cup and--toppled in amid a salvo of handclaps and roar
of "Bravo!"
That was nerve, courage, skill! That was golf! The miracle had
happened! Another hole to decide the match.
Quickly the crowd became still again as McLeod, his teeth set upon the
stem of his pipe, his stony face masking a murderous disappointment,
stepped forward to run down his four.
The silence was broken by a cry. Out of the air overhead came the sound
of a disturbance, and every face turned. A most amazing thing was in
the way of happening, a phenomenon unique in the history of
tournaments, for a man was being thrust forth from one of the hotel
windows, perhaps twenty-five feet above the ground--a writhing,
struggling, kicking man with fawn-colored spats. He was being ejected
painlessly but firmly, and by a girl--a grim-faced young woman of
splendid proportions. For a moment she allowed him to dangle; then she
dropped him into a handsome Dorothy Perkins rosebush. He landed with a
shriek. Briefly the amazon remained framed in the casement, staring
with dark defiance down into the upturned faces; her deep bosom was
heaving, her smoky hair was slightly disarranged; she allowed her eyes
to rest upon the figure entangled among the thorns beneath her, then
she closed the window.
Nothing like this had ever occurred in Scotland. The mighty McLeod
missed his putt and took a five.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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