"I'll do that little thing," said Cottle, and this time he put the power into the swing. The ball, caught squarely in the middle of the club-face, went whistling toward the distant green, a perfect screamer of a drive without a suspicion of hook or slice. It cleared the cross-bunker by ten feet, carried at least a hundred and eighty yards before it touched grass, and then bounded ahead like a scared rabbit, coming to rest at least two hundred and twenty-five yards away. "You like that?" asked Cottle, moving off the tee. "I didn't step into it very hard or I might have had more distance. Satisfactory, stakeholder?" And he winked at me openly and deliberately. "Wha--what sort of a game is this?" gulped Old Man Sprott, finding his voice with an effort. "Why," said Cottle, smiling cheerfully, "I wouldn't like to say off-hand and so early in the game, but you might call it golf. Yes, call it golf, and let it go at that." At this point I wish to go on record as denying the rumour that our two old reprobates showed the white feather. That first tee shot, and the manner in which it was made, was enough to inform them that they were up against a sickening surprise party; but, though startled and shaken, they did not weaken. They pulled themselves together and drove the best they knew how, and I realised that for once I was to see their true golfing form uncovered. Cottle tucked his wooden club under his arm and started down the course, and from that time on he had very little to say. Uncle Billy and Old Man Sprott followed him, their heads together at a confidential angle, and I brought up the rear with the Ooley-cow, who had elected himself a gallery of one. The first hole is a long par four. Poindexter and Sprott usually make it in five, seldom getting home with their seconds unless they have a wind behind them. Both used brassies and both were short of the green. Then they watched Cottle as he went forward to his ball. "That drive might have been a freak shot," quavered Uncle Billy. "Lucky fluke, that's all," said Old Man Sprott, but I knew and they knew that they only hoped they were telling the truth. Cottle paused over his ball for an instant, examined the lie and drew a wooden spoon from his bag. Then he set himself, and the next instant the ball was on its way, a long, high shot, dead on the pin. "And maybe that was a fluke!" muttered the Ooley-cow under his breath. "Look! He's got the green with it!" From the same distance I would have played a full mid-iron and trusted in Providence, but Cottle had used his wood, and I may say that never have I seen a ball better placed. It carried to the little rise of turf in front of the putting green, hopped once, and trickled onto the sand. I was not the only one who appreciated that spoon shot. "Say," yapped Old Man Sprott, turning to Perkins, "what are we up against here? Miracles?" "Yes, what have you framed up on us?" demanded Uncle Billy vindictively.