"Countin' the drive," said Windy, "that makes ten, eh?" A man may play nine strokes in a hazard, but he hates to admit it. Adolphus grunted and withdrew to the other side of the pit, from which point he watched Windy morosely. With victory in sight the latter became cheerful again; conversation bubbled out of him. "Boy, slip me the niblick and get up yonder on the edge of the ravine where you can watch this ball. I'm goin' to knock it a mile out of here. Ten shots he's had. If it was me, I'd give up. How am I to get a footin' on this infernal side hill? Spikes won't hold in that stuff. Wish I was a goat. Aha! The very thing!" Suddenly he delivered a powerful blow at the slope some distance below his ball and three or four feet to the left of it. Cupid gasped and opened his mouth to say something, but I nudged him and he subsided, clucking like a nervous hen. "What's the idea?" demanded Kitts. "To make little boys ask questions," was the calm reply. "I climbed the Alps once. Had to dig holes for my feet. Guess I haven't forgotten how, but diggin' with a blasted niblick is hard work." "Oh!" said Kitts. Windy continued to hack at the wall, the gallery looking on in tense silence. Nobody would have offered a suggestion; we all felt that it was their own affair, and on the knees of the gods, as the saying is. When Windy had hacked out a place for his right foot he cut another one for his left. The weeds were tough and the soil was hard, and he grunted as he worked. "Yep--that Alps trip--taught me something. Comes in--handy now. Pretty nifty--job, hey?" I suppose a mountain climber would have called it a nifty job. Cupid began to mutter. "Be quiet!" said I. "Let's see if Kitts has nerve enough to call it on him!" With the shaft of his niblick in his teeth, Windy swarmed up the side of the wall, found the footholds and planted himself solidly. Grasping a bush above his head with his left hand, he measured the distance with his eye, steadied himself and swung the niblick with his powerful right arm. It was a wonderful shot, even if Windy Wilkins did make it; the ball went soaring skyward, far beyond all trouble. "_Some--out!_" he panted, looking over his shoulder at Kitts. "I guess that'll clinch the match!" For just a second Adolphus hesitated; then he must have thought of the cup. "I rather think it will," said he. "You're nicely out, Wilkins--in forty-seven strokes." "Forty-seven devils!" shouted Windy. "I'm out _in two_!" "In a hazard," quoted Kitts, "the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball." At this point Adolphus made a serious mistake; he reached for the book. "Under the rule," he continued, "I could claim the hole on you, but I won't do that. I'll only count the strokes you took in chopping a stance for yourself----"