Chapter I: Play with Miss Harding (5)

Wallace teed a ball and Miss Lawrence drove a very good one for her. It was straight and a trifle high, but it had a carry of fully 120 yards.

"Didn't I tell you I was improving!" she exclaimed, smiling triumphantly at Mr. Harding. "Mr. Wallace is a splendid teacher."

"Yes, and you are a splendid pupil," returned Mr. Harding, with a knowing smile, "but you give me a chance, or I'll lodge a protest with the board of management."

She laughed, waved her hand mockingly at him, and away they went. I noticed that Wallace was not playing. He carried the clubs and they walked close to each other. He said something and she looked up to his face and smiled. It was evident they had much to talk of, and while I cannot prove it, I am inclined to doubt if their conversation was restricted to the details of the game.

Harding watched them, a quiet smile on his strong, kindly, and rugged face. He was humming the air of an old love song.

"Smith," he said after an interval of silence, "there are only two things in this life really worth having."

"What are they?"

"Youth and health."

"How about love?" I asked.

"Youth and health own love," he replied. "Love is their obedient servant. I thank God that I have not lost my youth or my health."

I was privileged to see this remarkable man for a moment in a new light, one which increased my respect and admiration for him.

When we returned to the club house the veranda was buzzing with gossip. Miss Dangerfield was delighted when she found that I was not acquainted with the cause of the excitement. It gave her a chance to impart the news to one ready to listen, and she was not slow in taking advantage of it.

"Miss Lawrence has refused Mr. LaHume!" she whispered, though she might as well have screamed it through a megaphone, since I was the only one on the veranda in ignorance of it.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I dare not tell," she said, but I knew she would. "If you'll promise not to reveal it to a living soul I'll tell you."

I promised.

"Mr. LaHume told Mr. Chilvers, Mr. Chilvers told Mrs. Chilvers, Mrs. Chilvers told Miss Ross, and Miss Ross told me, so you see that I have it right from the original source."

"And you told me," I said. "Why should the chain stop in so obscure a link. I am dying to tell somebody."

"But you promised not to," Miss Dangerfield protested.

"So did you," I replied.

"It seems that Percy flatly asked her to marry him, and that she flatly refused him," she continued, ignoring my implied threat. "I understand that Mr. LaHume is going to resign from the club."

"Why?" I asked. "Does he not find it effective as a matrimonial agency?"

"I don't know," she said. "There he is now, and he's trying to catch your eye."

I turned and saw LaHume, who signalled that he wished to speak to me. I saw at a glance that he had been drinking. He shoved a piece of paper into my hands.

"There is my resignation from the Woodvale Club," he said, his voice husky, and sullen anger in his dark eyes. LaHume is a handsome fellow, but there is something amiss with him. Possibly his ego is over-developed.

"I will present it to the board," I said, preferring to avoid discussion with him while in his then condition.

"I don't care a blank whether they accept it or not," he declared with a rising voice. "From this day I shall never step foot in Woodvale."

"Better think it over later on," I said.

"If you think I care to have anything further to do with a club which shelters and encourages low adventurers like this fellow Wallace, you do not know Percy LaHume," he declared, working himself into a fury. "And you and Carter are to blame for it," he concluded.

"I shall refuse to discuss that with you at this time," I calmly replied and abruptly left him.

A few minutes later I saw him striding down the path on the way to the railway station. As luck would have it, Wallace and Miss Lawrence had just left the eighteenth green, and stood chatting near the path which leads to the station. If they saw the approaching LaHume they paid no attention to him. At this moment Carter and Miss Harding joined me and the latter asked what I found so diverting.

"I hope that LaHume will have the sense not to pick a quarrel with Wallace," I said, pointing in his direction. "He is excited and--and nervous."

"Why don't you say it--intoxicated," drawled Carter.

LaHume had reached the professional and his pupil. We saw Wallace lift his cap as LaHume came within a few yards of them. The latter stopped, and though the trio was quite a distance away, we could plainly hear LaHume's voice, but could not make out the words. Wallace made a deprecatory gesture and Miss Lawrence drew herself up and faced LaHume in an attitude of scorn.

I noted that LaHume was gesticulating with his left hand, and that his right arm was lowered and to his back. He kept edging closer to Wallace.

Of a sudden LaHume's right hand swung out and he made a vicious lunge at Wallace. I saw the latter throw up his guard, but it was too far away to tell if the blow had landed. There was a struggle for a second or two, then Wallace pushed him clear, and like lightning I saw his left hand swing across to LaHume's stomach. LaHume was shot back several yards and fell heavily, his feet in the path and his head and shoulders on the turf.

It all happened so quickly that we stood there, spellbound. We saw Miss Lawrence rush forward and half fall into Wallace's arms. We saw him stagger to a lawn settee, she still clinging to him and screaming. LaHume lay as if dead.

These latter details I noticed as Carter and I were running toward them.

Wallace was on his feet before we reached him. He was attempting to calm Miss Lawrence who was moaning, "He has killed him; he has killed him!" I knew she feared for Wallace, but I was much more apprehensive as to the fate of LaHume.

Blood was trickling down the face of the young Scotchman, and its red had stained a handkerchief which Miss Lawrence had pressed to his scalp above his left temple. It was the sight of this which frightened her, but she comported herself with as much bravery as would most women under similar circumstances.

"I'm not much hurt," declared Wallace with a reassuring smile. "It's only a scratch on the scalp. Miss Lawrence is more alarmed than I am injured. I assure you it is nothing."

"LaHume struck him with a knife!" exclaimed Miss Lawrence, recovering her nerve as a wave of anger came to her. "He called Mr. Wallace a coward and a cad, and when Mr. Wallace tried to calm him he struck at him with a knife. Oh, I hope you have killed him!"

"I'm afraid your hope is realised," said Carter, bending over the inert form of LaHume.

"Small fear of that," said Wallace, but I detected a note of apprehension in his voice. "I aimed to disable without seriously injuring him."

As he spoke LaHume moved, groaned and half raised himself. In the meantime a group had gathered, and in it was Doctor Barry, a member of the club. LaHume was conscious but completely dazed. We were much relieved when the doctor said that he was not permanently injured. Ordering two of the servants to take LaHume to the club house and put him to bed, Doctor Barry turned his attention to Wallace.

Despite the spilling of blood the cut was a trifling one, and after giving it simple treatment, the doctor assured Wallace that he could attend to his duties as usual. An hour later the nervy Scotchman was out on the links giving Lawson a lesson.

We picked the knife from the walk near the scene of the encounter. The blow had been aimed at the breast or neck, but Wallace parried it and received the scratch before he could grasp LaHume's wrist. The quick wrench which caused the knife to fly from LaHume's hand fractured one of the small bones in his forearm, as was learned when that desperate young man had more fully recovered.

It was a disagreeable incident, and I take no pleasure in recording it. Wallace immediately tendered his resignation, but Carter and I told him it would not be considered, and I am sure the management will uphold us in that action.

The conduct of Miss Lawrence convinces me that she is much attached to Wallace. Of course, nothing else was talked of during the afternoon and evening.

In the cool of the day Miss Harding accepted my invitation to play "the brook holes," as we call them, and we climbed to the top of "The Eagle's Nest" to watch the sunset.

I helped her up the steep rocks and finally we stood breathless, gazing down on our little world.

"At last we are alone," I said.

It was one of my usual brilliant remarks. There must have been a ring of tragedy or melodrama in my voice, but really I said it only because I could think of nothing else to say at that moment.

Miss Harding looked up with a curious expression in her deep brown eyes and a rather timid smile on her lips. It was as if she were wondering if I meditated hurling myself to the depths below, or if I intended to take this opportunity to launch some tender declaration.

I wish I had the command of language of the garrulous and ever entertaining hero of the popular novel. If I ever propose it will be in writing.

I can see that look of startled curiosity on her pretty face as I write these lines, and the more I think of it, the more am I convinced that she expected something far different from what followed.

I wonder what she would have said or done if I had thrown myself at her feet and passionately declared the love I bear to her? I wonder if those tender lips would have murmured the words which would have raised me to the seventh heaven of happiness, or if she would have firmly said--oh, what is the use of wondering?

"No danger of being hit with a golf ball up here," I said, when she remained silent.

And then she laughed. Since there was nothing witty in my remark she must have been laughing at something else. I have an idea what it was, but I had sense enough to laugh with her.

"Do you know," I said, determined to frame a rational statement, "I believe Miss Lawrence is in love with Mr. Wallace."

"Indeed?" she exclaimed. "And what of Mr. Wallace?"

"I believe Mr. Wallace is in love with Miss Lawrence."

"What a delightful state of affairs!" she laughed. "Nothing then remains but to set the date, celebrate the event and live happily ever afterward."

"I do not say she will marry him," I ventured to qualify. "It probably started as a harmless flirtation on her part, but I really think she cares more for him than she would be willing to admit."

"If she liked him well enough to encourage his attentions, which is a fairly good definition of a harmless flirtation," she said, quite seriously, "and later discovers that she loves him and that he loves her, why should they not marry?"

I think my tactics at this point were rather clever. I saw a chance to obtain her views on a question most vital to me, and I proceeded to do so, but I hope I did not lower myself in her estimation. As I have said before, I think Wallace is good enough for any woman.

"Consider the difference in their stations in life," I interposed. "She has wealth, family, and a high position in society. Of Wallace we know nothing except that he comports himself like a gentleman in reduced circumstances."

"I should imagine that would be the most difficult time to play such a role," Miss Harding said. "We know those who cannot be gentlemen even under the most encouraging circumstances. The greatest happiness which can come to a good woman is to marry the man she loves, and if she allows wealth, position or any other selfish consideration to stand in the way she does not deserve happiness."

"Right you are!" I declared with an enthusiasm which may have betrayed me. "I agree with every word you have said."

"See those perfect yellows against that bar of vivid red," she said, pointing to the west, where the sky quivered with a naming sunset. "See how the light flashes from the windows of the club house! One would think it filled with molten metal. How sharp the old church belfry shows against that mass of golden cloud to the northwest!"

We watched this glorious scene in silence until the upper rim of the sun sank beneath the rounded crest of "Old Baldy." Then I helped her down and we walked slowly back to the club house.

Have I not the right to assume that Miss Harding "likes me well enough to encourage my attentions," which is her definition of a flirtation? I believe I have. I know that other young gentlemen belonging to the club have attempted in vain to compete with me for the favour of her society. All have failed--Carter alone excepted. But recently I have been with her more than has Carter. In fact I fear him less at the present moment than I have at any time. I shall soon know my fate.

For the first time the strain of my stock operations is telling on me. I have now purchased 35,000 shares of N.O. & G., and the market for it closed to-night at 60. If I were forced to settle at this figure I would be about $345,000 loser. If the stock is valueless, as some of the experts are now declaring, I am liable for nearly $2,000,000 more.

I have converted everything except my equity in Woodvale into money, and counting the margins in the hands of my brokers I find that I have nearly $3,000,000. I suppose I could get out with a loss of half a million, and there are moments when my cowardice struggles against me and when I am tempted to abandon this hazardous enterprise.

I shall stick it out, however. I know the conspiracy which has been hatched, and I do not believe they will dare force the price down much lower. I am going to buy another block of ten thousand shares if it continues to decline, and then await developments. If it goes to zero I shall still have a little money left, and I shall have the income from the old farm--but I shall not have the hardihood to ask for the hand of Grace Harding.

You may talk as much as you please but money is a commanding factor in love and marriage. It is all very well for a wealthy man to fall in love and marry a poor girl, but it is an entirely different thing for a poor man to aspire to the hand and heart of a wealthy woman.

Honestly, I don't believe it right that women should be permitted under the law to inherit vast sums of money--at least marriageable women. No man of ordinary means who possesses a proper self-respect will espouse a woman whose income overshadows his own.

I would limit the inheritances of marriageable women to a maximum amount of $100,000. I wish Miss Harding did not have a dollar.

The contest for the Harding Trophy--I mean the bronze, and not the real Harding Trophy--has narrowed down to four of us, Carter, Boyd, Marshall and myself. I have a sort of a premonition that as that 'bronze gent' goes, so will go everything which I hold dear. I am making the fight of my life for it. I play Marshall to-morrow morning.

ENTRY NO. XVIII

MR. HARDING'S STRUGGLE

I won my match with Marshall after a contest which went to the twentieth hole. He had me dormie one coming to the eighteenth, but by perfect playing I won it in a five and halved the match. Nothing happened on the first extra hole, but on the following I held a fifteen putt for a three and won a beautifully contested match.

Miss Harding went around with us and was my Mascot. I broke my record for the course, making a medal score of seventy-eight. Miss Harding congratulated me and I was so happy I could have yelled. Dear old Marshall did not take his defeat the least to heart, but he is not playing for the stakes that I am.

I have dreamed twice that if I won the Harding Trophy I should win everything.

Carter beat Boyd handily, and the prize will go to one of us. I must beat him; I shall beat him!

After having declared innumerable times that he would master the secrets of golf without aid from anyone, Harding finally surrendered and took his first lesson this afternoon.

"I take back everything I ever said about this being an easy game to play," he said. "I'm a pretty good 'rule of thumb' civil and mechanical engineer, I know a few things about the laws of resistances and all that sort of thing, I have watched you fellows hit that ball and have tried to imitate you, but it's no use. Now I'm going to do just what Wallace tells me, and if he can teach me to drive I'll pay him more than any professional ever made in the history of the game."

Harding certainly has had a time of it. For weeks he has laboured with a patience worthy of better results, he has purchased every known variety and weight of club. He has a larger collection of drivers, brassies, cleeks, mashies, midirons, jiggers, niblicks, putters and other tools than Billy Moon, and Moon is a specialist in that direction.

The surrounding woods, the ponds, brooks and swamps contain unnumbered balls which Harding has misdriven. He will not waste one minute looking for a ball which gets into difficulty, and since his arrival our orders to the manufacturers have more than doubled.

One of his ambitions has been to drive a ball across the old mill pond. It is a long carry and beyond probability that he can accomplish it, but I have seen him drive box after box of balls and give them to the caddies who have recovered them.

Wallace was on hand at the appointed time to give Harding his first lesson, and we had quite a gallery for our foursome, including Miss Harding and Miss Lawrence. Wallace was to play with Harding against Carter and me, but the chief interest centred in whether Wallace could effect any improvement in the playing of his ponderous pupil.

He told Harding to make several practise swings Harding did so and Wallace studied them closely.

"A man of your build should play with the left foot advanced," he said. "Bend the left knee but keep the other one more nearly rigid. Keep the weight of your body on your heels or you will fall on your ball when you swing through. Do not curve your back like a letter C. Keep the backbone straight but not rigid. It is the pivot on which your body and shoulders must turn, and how can it turn true if your vertebrae is bent?"

"I had not thought of that," admitted Harding, making a much better stroke.

"Unless the back is straight the right shoulder will drop, and that is fatal," cautioned Wallace. "Grip firmly and evenly with the fingers--not the palms--of both hands, but let the wrists be flexible until the club-head comes to the ball."

Wallace corrected other errors, and after fifteen minutes of instruction Harding teed a ball and for the first time in his life cleared the lane. He was as delighted as a boy who unexpectedly comes into possession of his first gun.

"Wallace," he declared, "if you will stick to me until I get so I can do that well half of the time I'll give you a hundred shares of the L.M. & K. and a job which beats this one all hollow."

"I think you will be able to do even better than that," said Wallace confidently.

As the game progressed Harding's play steadily improved and his face took on an expression of supreme satisfaction delightful to contemplate.

His crowning triumph came on the thirteenth hole, in which he drove the green and found his ball laying within a foot of the cup, from which distance he easily negotiated a two which won the hole, and, as it subsequently developed, the match, Wallace holding the best ball of Carter and myself even.

Harding made the round in 106, which is ten strokes better than any of his previous records. He tried in vain to induce Wallace to take some large sum of money, but this strange young Scotchman positively refused to accept more than the regular rate for a lesson.

LaHume left, bag and baggage, early this morning, and I doubt if Woodvale will see him again. His membership is for sale, and at a special meeting of the board his resignation was accepted. He seems to have been the villain of this diary, but really he is not a bad sort of fellow, save for a strain of tactless selfishness. I presume that his good looks eventually will win for him some unfortunate heiress.

Had he remained here until this evening he would have been treated to another surprise. Wallace took Miss Lawrence's high-powered automobile from the garage, and, after a preliminary run of several miles in which to become familiar with certain new devices, swung it around the club house and up to the landing steps with the easy skill in which he handles a mashie.

As Bishop says, he certainly is "a most remarkable hired man."

Miss Lawrence, Miss Ross and Miss Dangerfield soon appeared and, with Wallace, started on a trip which was to include a call at Bishops, and later a spin down the old post road and back by some circuitous route.

It is only a week from to-day until the meeting of the directors of the N.O. & G. I shall then know whether I am to be comparatively a financial nonentity or a man of affairs. And then I shall know something of vastly more importance!

ENTRY NO. XIX

THE TORNADO

Early Monday morning Mr. Harding took a train for Oak Cliff, where he had an appointment with Mr. Wilson. He made a remark to the effect that his mission pertained more to business than golf. Mr. Wilson is president of the bank through which the "Harding System" transacts most of its financial operations.

"You can do me a favour, if you will, Smith," he said. "I shall stay over night in Oak Cliff. We have visitors coming to Woodvale to-morrow evening, and I should be back here to dine with them by six o'clock. There is no train from Oak Cliff within hours of that time, and it has occurred to me that the folks might come for me in the red machine. Of course the Kid thinks she can handle it, but I hate to trust her on so long and hilly a route. Could you come with them?"

An invitation was never accepted with more cheerful willingness. It was arranged that Mrs. Harding, Miss Harding and I should arrive at Oak Cliff with the auto at about four o'clock Tuesday afternoon.

We were to start from Woodvale at half after one o'clock, so as to have plenty of time. That Fate, which is always prying into and disarranging the plans of us poor mortals, interfered with our arrangements an hour before the time fixed for our departure. The visitors who were to arrive in the evening came shortly after noon. It was exasperating.

I pictured myself making that long trip alone, and cursed the chattering arrivals who had the bad form to anticipate the hour set for their welcome. There were three of them, and I noticed that they were of mature years.

I sat glumly watching them and heartily wishing that the train which brought them had been blocked for an hour or two, when Miss Harding came smilingly towards me.

"Mamma cannot go," she said.

"And you?" I asked, hardly daring to hope for the best.

"They seemed glad to excuse me, Jacques Henri," she laughed.

I have no doubt I grinned like a Cheshire cat. I refrained from telling the abominable falsehood that I was sorry Mrs. Harding could not go with us, and an hour later the huge touring car rolled smoothly away from the Woodvale club house, its front seat occupied by a supremely happy gentleman of the name of Smith, and by his side a supremely pretty young lady who waved her hand to the elderly group on the veranda.

I had been so absorbed in the unfolding of the incidents just narrated that I took no note of the weather or of anything else. For a month or more the weather has been so uniformly fine that we had come to accept the succession of warm but cloudless days as a matter of course.

When I was a boy my father drilled into me a knowledge of the visible signs of impending changes in meteorological conditions. As I became older the study of the warnings displayed in the sky and in the indescribable variations in the feel of the air possessed a fascination for me. During the early years after the formation of the club the members jested me on account of my predilection for weather forecasting, but the uniform accuracy of these guesses commanded their surprise and subsequently won their respect.

Chilvers and others sometimes call me "Old Prog. Smith," and I am more proud of that pleasantry than of some others.

There was not a breath of air stirring. The atmosphere seemed stagnant, like a pool on which the sun has beat during rainless weeks. The dried tops of the swamp grass and reeds pointed motionless to the heat-quivering sky. The dust cast up by our car hung over the road like a ribbon of fog.

The forest to our left shut off a view of the western sky, but I felt sure that the clouds of an approaching storm were already marshalled along its horizon. Then we shot out into a clearing and I took one swift look.

From north to south was spanned the sweeping curve of a gray cloud with just a tinge of yellow blended into it. The ordinary observer would have seen in it no premonition of a storm. It was smooth, light in tone and restful to the eye as compared with the angry blue from out of which the sun blazed.

The upper edges of this mass were unbroken save at one point near the zenith of its curve. From this there protruded the sharper edges of a "thunder-head," as if some titanic and unseen hand were lifting to the firmament a colossal head of cauliflower, its shaded portions beautifully toned with blue. This description may be homely, but it has the merit of accuracy.

I said no word of my certainty of the oncoming tempest, but threw on full speed and dashed ahead at a rate which startled my fair companion. From the turn in the road just beyond the clearing we headed directly into the line of march of the storm. If it were slow-moving I calculated we would reach Oak Cliff before it broke, but I realised it would be close work.

Miss Harding leaned over and said something to me. The whirr of the machinery and the swaying of the car made conversation difficult. I presume she thought I was determined to show my nerve and skill as a driver.

"Why this mad haste, Jacques Henri?" she again cried, her head so close to mine that her hair brushed my cheek.

I returned a non-committal smile and fixed my eyes on the road which slipped toward us like a huge belt propelled by invisible pulleys.

The miles kept pace with the minutes. Of a sudden the sun was blotted out. When I lifted my eyes from the road I saw birds circling high in the sky. The cattle in adjacent fields lifted their heads and moved uneasily as if some instinct sounded a warning in their dull brains. Above the trees I saw the skirmish line of the storm.

In after hours Miss Harding told me that she had quickly solved the secret of my wild dash. For a quarter of an hour she hung to the swaying seat and said no word. Once I looked into her eyes and read in them that she understood.

We dashed through a little village and paid no heed to the angry shouts and menacing gestures of a man who wore a huge star on his chest. Oak Cliff was only ten miles away. Could we make it?

The restful grays of the cloud had disappeared; and low down on the horizon I saw a belt of bluish black, and as I looked, a bolt of lightning jabbed through it. We were now running parallel to the storm, and I believed I could beat it to Oak Cliff. I felt certain I could reach the little hamlet of Pine Top, and from there on it would be easy to get to shelter. Between us and Pine Top was practically an unbroken wilderness, a part of the country reserved as a source of water supply for the great city far to the south of us.

Into that wilderness we dashed.

We were taking a hill with the second speed clutch on when a grating sound came to my alert ears, and with it an unnatural shudder of the machinery. I threw off power and applied the brakes. As the car stopped the deep rolling bass of the thunder rumbled over the hills.

"We are caught," declared Miss Harding, but there was no fear in her voice.

"Not yet!" I asserted, springing from the car and making a frenzied examination of the cause of our breakdown. I knew it was not serious, and when I located it I joyously proclaimed it a mere trifle. But automobile trifles demand minutes, and nature did not postpone the resistless march of its storm battalions. As I toiled with wrench and screw-driver I cursed the folly which induced me to plunge into that desolate stretch of forest and marsh.

The roar of the tempest's artillery became continuous. The low scud clouds travelling with incredible velocity blotted out the blue sky to the east and darkness fell like a black shroud. I could not see to work beneath the floor of the car, and lost another minute searching for and lighting a candle.

In the uncanny gloom I saw the fair face of the one whose safety now was menaced by my bold folly. I saw her form silhouetted against the black of a fir tree in the almost blinding glare of a flame of lightning.

"Just one minute and I will have it fixed!" I said, and she smiled bravely but said nothing.

Still not a breath of air! The spires of the pine trees stood rigid as if cast in bronze!

This is the time when a storm strikes terror to my soul. With the first patter of the rain and the onrushing of the wind I experience a sensation of relief, but it is nerve-racking to stand in that frightful calm and await the mighty charge of unknown forces.

As I bolted the displaced part into its proper adjustment I reflected that had it not been for the ten minutes thus lost we would have been in Oak Cliff. My calculations had been accurate, but again Fate had introduced an unexpected factor. I started the engine and leaped into the car.

"Only a mile to shelter!" I exclaimed. "I think we can make it. Where are the storm aprons?"

"We forgot them," she said.

"I forgot them, you mean," I declared. "Hold fast! It is a rough road!"

The red car leaped forward. I remembered that there was a farmhouse a mile or so ahead.

Never have I witnessed anything like the vivid continuity of that lightning. With a crash which sounded as if the gods had shattered the vault of the heavens a bolt streamed into a tree not a hundred yards ahead, and one of its limbs fell to the roadway. It was impossible to stop. She saw it and crouched behind the shield. With a lurch and a leap we passed over it.

I felt a drop of rain on my face. The trees swayed with the first gust of the tempest. We were going down hill with full speed on. A few hundred yards ahead was a stone culvert spanning the bed of a creek whose waters years before had been diverted to a reservoir a mile or so to the east. Save at rare intervals, the bed of this creek was dry.

As the recollection of this old culvert came to me I raised my eyes and saw something which drove the blood from my heart! A quarter of a mile ahead was a gray wall of rain, and dim through it I saw huge trees mount into the air and twist and gyrate like leaves caught up in an air eddy.

Holding our speed for a few seconds, which seemed like minutes, we surged toward the old culvert. Jamming on the brakes, I swung to one side of the embankment and stopped almost on the edge of the dry bed of the creek.

Miss Harding leaped to the ground and stood for an instant dazed. I stumbled as I jumped, but was on my feet like a flash. The arch of the culvert was not thirty feet away, but had we not been protected by the embankment we should have been beaten down and killed ere we reached its shelter.

The stones and gravel from the roadway above were dashed into our faces by the outer circle of the tornado. Grasping Miss Harding by the arm I dragged or carried her, I know not which, to the yawning but welcome opening of the old stone archway.

I cannot describe what followed. It was as if the earth were in its death throes. We were tossed back and forth in this tunnel, a resistless suction pulling us first toward one entrance and then to the other, only to be hurled back by buffeting blows.

There was a sense of suffocation as if the lightning had burned the air. Our nostrils were filled with the fumes of sulphur, and we looked into each other's frightened eyes only when some near flash penetrated the awful blackness of what seemed our living tomb.

A tree fell across the west opening, one twisted limb projecting well into the tunnel of the culvert. We could not distinguish the crashes of thunder from that of hurtling trees or the demoniac roar of the tornado. All of our senses were assailed by the unleashed furies of the tempest; crazed with rage that we were just beyond their reach.

I cannot say how long this lasted. Observers of the tornado in other places state that it was not more than three minutes in passing. Its path was less than half a mile in width, but I am convinced that its onward speed was comparatively slow else we would not have reached the culvert from the time I first saw it until its edge struck us.

Then came a moment of appalling silence. The tornado had passed. With this strange calm the darkness lifted and we knew that the crisis was over.

We were near the centre of the tunnel. I became aware that I was holding her hands and that her head was resting on my shoulder.

As the silence came like a shock, she raised her head and our eyes met.

"God has been very good to us," she said, gently releasing her hands. "Let us thank Him."

Standing there in the rising waters we silently offered up our thanks to the One who rides on the wings of the storm and Who had guided two of His children to a haven of refuge.

The rain was still falling in sheets and the water had risen to our shoe-tops. In the growing light I discovered a projecting ledge near the centre of our shelter and helped Miss Harding to obtain a footing.

"If the water keeps on rising," she said, "we must get out of here. I am sure the rain will not kill us."

"That's true," I admitted, "but I hope the rain will cease before the flood reaches your ledge. It's coming down good and hard now."

It was pouring torrents. Though the crippled stream drained only a small territory the current had already reached my knees. I waded to the east opening and took one glance at the sky. The outlook was not encouraging, but we could stand another eighteen-inch rise without serious discomfort or danger. I realised that it would not do to be swept against the tree which partially clogged the further opening.

Half an hour passed and the rain still fell and the water rose inch by inch. We laughed and joked and were not in the least alarmed. Then the water lapped over the ledge on which she stood. She declared that her feet were wet as they possibly could get.

"I can stand it a few more minutes if you can," she said. "The rain is ceasing. You poor Jacques Henri! It's all you can do to keep your feet!"

I stoutly denied it.

"I'm having a jolly time!" I declared. "I see a light in the west. The rain will cease in a few minutes."

Even as I spoke the water rose several inches in one wave. I surmised what had happened. A dam had formed below us and the water was backing up. In less than a minute it had risen six inches, and was at her shoe-tops.

"We are drowned out!" I said. "Let's get out before we have to swim for it. Now be steady and remember your training as an equestrienne. Grab me by the neck and hang on and we'll be out of here in a minute."

I lifted her to my left shoulder and with my free right hand steadied myself against the wall of the tunnel. The bed of the brook was of soft sand and formed a fairly good footing. Luckily the same cause which so suddenly flooded us out materially lessened the force of the current, but it still struggled fiercely against me, and a false movement on the part of my fair burden might have led to distressing and even serious circumstances.

The water was almost to my waist but her skirts were clear of it. I slipped once and thought we were in trouble, but we safely reached the opening and it was a happy moment when I placed her on solid ground. Not that I was tired of my burden--not at all. I cheerfully would have attempted the task of carrying her the three miles between us and Pine Top.

A light mist was falling, but we did not notice that. We stood spellbound, gazing on a scene of unspeakable devastation!

To the north, west and southeast the forest lay prone like a field of wind-swept corn. Huge oaks and pines were tossed in grotesque windrows. Here and there gnarled roots projected above the prostrate foliage. The once proud trees lay like brave soldiers; their limbs rigid in the contorted attitudes of death.

The line of wreck was clearly marked along its northern line but the hills shut off our view to the west. The road to Pine Top was one mass of trunks and twisted limbs. For some distance in the other direction there was no forest to the right, and so far as we could see the road was clear.

At first glance I thought the touring car a total wreck. It had been lifted and hurled on its side against a partially dismantled stone wall. It was half hidden by a large branch of a tree, and its rear wheels were buried in mud and debris.

As we stood silent and awe-stricken amid this manifestation of the insignificance of man, the sun blazed forth from behind a laggard cloud. The effect was theatrical. It was like throwing the limelight on the scene which marks the climax of some tense situation. Instinctively we lifted our arms and cheered for sheer joy.

"What care we for wrecked automobiles and wet clothes?" I shouted. "We live, we live!"

"It is good to live," she cried; "it is splendid to live!"

We smilingly saluted His Majesty the sun once again, and then returned to earth.

"What shall we do?" Miss Harding asked.

My most vivid impression of this charming young woman at that instant was that her shoes gave forth a "chugging" sound as she walked, convincing aural evidence that their spare spaces were occupied with water. I also recall that her hat was a limp and bedraggled wreck from being jammed for an hour or more against the roof of the culvert.

"I don't know," I frankly admitted. "It is certain we cannot take this road to Pine Top. I have an idea that our back track is clear. I suggest that I proceed to ascertain if this machine is dead beyond hope of resurrection. If it isn't we'll take it back to civilisation. If it is we'll abandon it and walk."

"It is now half past three o'clock," she said, looking at her watch. "Even if we are late in getting to Oak Cliff we must go there if possible, for I know papa will wait for us and be worried if we do not come."

"I'll do the best I can," I said, hesitating a moment and vainly attempting to think of some discreet way in which to express what was on my mind.

"It will take some time," I finally said, "and in the meanwhile you had better--you had better--"

"Oh, I'm going to," she laughed, and before I could look up she was on her way to the sunny side of the embankment on the further approach of the culvert. Ten minutes later I turned and saw her a few paces away silently watching me, and the same glance revealed a pair of dainty shoes on the top rail of the old bridge, and I presume that in some place was a pair of stockings so disposed as to give Sol's rays a fair chance to do their most effective work.

"I think I can fix it inside of an hour," I said.

"That will be splendid!" she exclaimed.

The sun was blistering hot and I worked like a Trojan, but again was it my fate to disappoint her. The working parts were clogged with sand and mud, and I had underestimated the magnitude of my task. I know now that our best course would have been to abandon the machine and to walk to Pine Top, but perhaps what happened was just as well.

It was 5:45 before the machine gave its first sure signs of returning consciousness. Miss Harding gave a glad cry and a quarter of an hour later when the red monster stood coughing in the muddy roadway those dry shoes were where they belonged.

With light hearts we waved farewell to the kindly old culvert and set our pace toward Woodvale. It was our plan to take the first crossroad leading from the path of the tornado, and if possible make our way to Oak Cliff. We passed a small hut which nestled in the shelter of the rocks. In our mad rush I had not noticed it, but it seemed vacant.

A little farther on the road turns sharply to the right and re-enters the forest. As we came to the top of a knoll I looked ahead and saw at a glance that we were again nearing the path of the tornado. But I went on until the trunks of the stricken trees brought us to a halt.

"We are trapped, Miss Harding," I said, after an examination which proved that even foot travel was well-nigh impossible. "We are in the segment of a circle closed at its ends by fallen trees, and the worst of it is this: there remains to us positively no outlet to the road."

It was an exasperating situation. We decided to return to the hut in the hope that its occupant--if it had one--might be able to show us a trail through the woods to the west. As we came near the hut we saw smoke coming from its stove-pipe chimney. It looked mighty cheerful.

I knocked on the door and a big, good-natured Norwegian opened it. He is one of the watchmen employed by the Water Commissioners to keep trespassers off the lands reserved for water supply.

I briefly explained our predicament. He informed me that there was no wagon road leading to the east or the west, and said, with a wide grin, that our auto could not possibly get out until the road was cleared. Miss Harding joined us and made a despairing gesture when told the situation.

This man Peterson said that the tornado had missed his hut by a few hundred yards. He was in Pine Top when it swept through the edge of that village, killing several persons.

"Where is the nearest railway station?" asked Miss Harding.

"Pine Top."

"How far is it?" I asked.

Peterson scratched his head and said that to go around the fallen timber meant a journey of fully five miles.

"Will you guide us?" I asked. "I will pay you," I added, naming a liberal sum.

Peterson said he would when he had cooked and eaten his supper. It was then after seven o'clock, and the thought occurred to us that we were hungry. Peterson agreed to do the best he could for us in the way of a meal, and he did very well.

We were lamentably shy on dishes and knives and forks. We had bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, bread and butter and some really excellent coffee. There was only a single room in the hut, but it was clean and fairly tidy. Peterson explained that he never had company, and apologised for his lack of tableware.

Miss Harding was given the only regulation knife and fork, and I had the pleasure of beholding her eating from my plate. There was only one plate, Peterson using the frying pan and a carving knife.

What fun we had over that humble but wholesome meal! Miss Harding praised our host's cooking, and his honest blue eyes glistened at the compliment. Miss Harding and I sat on a board which rested on two nail kegs, while Peterson, against his protest, had the one chair in the house.

It was growing dark ere the meal was ended. I ran the touring car into the little yard and sheltered it as best I could under the projecting ledge of a rock. Peterson produced a big strip of heavy canvas which I put to good service by protecting the vital parts of the mechanism. Peterson assured us that the car would be safe, and with a parting look at it we entered the forest.

It was a long, tortuous and in places dangerous journey. While we were not in the track of the tornado, the storm had been severe over a wide territory. Fallen trees lay across our rocky trail and at times we had to make wide detours, forcing our way through thick underbrush and scaling slippery rocks.

Miss Harding proved a good woodswoman.

"If I did not know that papa is worried I would enjoy every moment of this," she declared, as we paused to rest after a climb of fully five hundred feet out of the valley.

The lightning was again flickering in the west and we pressed on. There were intervals of cleared spaces now and then. We climbed fences, jumped ditches and seemingly walked scores of miles, but still the flickering yellow light of that lantern led us remorselessly on. At last when it appeared as if our quest were interminable we surmounted a rail fence and found ourselves in a road.

"Pine Top half a mile," was the cheering announcement made by Peterson as he held the lantern so that Miss Harding could examine the extent of a rent just made in her gown.

Ten minutes later we stood on the platform of the little red station in Pine Top, and the spasmodic clatter of a telegraph instrument was music in our ears.

Down came the rain, but what cared we! The steel rails which gleamed and glistened in the signal lights led to Woodvale. We entered the room and waited patiently until the operator looked up from the jabbering receiver.

"When is the next train to Woodvale?" was my ungrammatical query.

"I wish I could tell you," he answered, rather sullenly. He had been on duty hours over time. "They've nearly cleared the track between here and Woodvale, but the Lord only knows when a train can get through from Oak Cliff."

"No train from Oak Cliff since the storm?" I asked.

"Well, I should guess not!" he gruffly laughed. "Oak Cliff's wiped off the map."

Miss Harding clutched my arm. There was startled agony in her eyes, her lips trembled but she bore the shock bravely.

"Did you get a message to that effect?" I demanded in a voice which must have surprised him.

"No, the wires are down between here and Oak Cliff, but a man came by here an hour ago who said it went through the village."

"Did it strike the Oak Cliff club house?" I asked.

"He didn't say," replied the operator, and then the instrument demanded his attention.

"These reports are always exaggerated," I assured Miss Harding. "Besides the club house is of stone, and it is protected by a hill to the west. Do not be in the least alarmed."

"We can only hope and wait," she softly said.

We heartily thanked Peterson and watched him as he disappeared in the darkness, tramping stolidly in the face of a driving rain.

Despite the rain it was warm and we sat on a bench under the broad roof of the platform. I did my best to take her mind away from the dread which possessed her, but it was a wretched hour for both of us. Then we saw the flicker of lights down the track, and toward us came a small army of labourers who had been clearing the roadbed between us and Woodvale.

They stopped a minute in front of the station. These hardy Italians stood in the drenching rain, axes in their hands or over their shoulders, their clothes smeared with mud, water running in streams from the rims of their broad hats; there they stood and laughed, chattered, jested and indulged in rough play while their foreman received his instructions from the telegraph operator. And then with a cheer and a song they started on their way to Oak Cliff. Happiness and contentment are gifts; they cannot be purchased.

Something to the south burned a widening circle in the mist and rain, and from its centre we made out the headlight of a locomotive. It was a passenger train, and as it crawled cautiously to the platform two men leaped from it and came toward us.

I recognised Carter and Chilvers.

They had heard of the tornado and had constituted themselves a searching party.

"Naturally your mother is alarmed," said Carter "but I assured her that it was nothing more serious than delayed trains. She knows nothing of the tornado."

We were informed that the up train would be held on a sidetrack until the one from Oak Cliff got through. There was nothing to do but wait. It was past midnight when we heard the blast of a whistle to the north, and when the train from Oak Cliff pulled in Mr. Harding was the first one to swing to the station platform.

"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed, releasing his daughter's arms from his neck, holding her at arm's length and then kissing her again. "Is this the way you call for me at four o'clock? Where's Smith? Hello, Smith! Where's the red buzz wagon?"

"Over there," I said.

And then we all talked at once. Chilvers danced a clog-step to the delight of the grinning trainmen, Carter removed his monocle and polished it innumerable times, Miss Harding laughed and cried by turns, Mr. Harding dug cigars from pockets which seemed inexhaustible, and gave them to the railroad men, and I furiously smoked a pipe and put in a word whenever I had a chance. It was an informal and glorious reunion.