“What are you looking for?” exclaimed Harding “There’s your ball right in front of you.”

“I know it,” calmly said Wilson, running his hand over the turf, “but I’m curious to know what kind of Trifolium this is.”

“Wilson,” said the magnate, as the former rose to his full height and took a club from his bag, “Wilson, I might as well quit and give up this game.”

“Why?” asked the surprised banker.

“Let me tell you something,” declared Harding.  “I only took up this golf business a few weeks ago, and by hard work have found out about mashies, hooks, foozles, cops, one off two and all those difficult things, but I’m blamed if I ever heard of trifoliums, or whatever you call ’em, and you can’t ring ’em in on me.  I won’t stand for it!  We don’t play trifoliums in Woodvale, do we, Smith?”

“But my dear Harding,” interposed Wilson, his mobile face wrinkled in a smile, “Trifolium is not a golf term and has nothing whatever to do with the game.”

“What in thunder is it?”

“Trifolium is the genus name for the clover plant, and these are beautiful specimens,” explained this amateur botanist.

“It is, is it?” laughed Harding.  “Well, let’s see how far you ’can knock that ball out of that bed of Trifoliums.”

We left them soon after and returned to the club house.  The ladies did not care to play before luncheon, preferring to take a rest after the exciting experiences of the trip from Woodvale.  I ran across an old friend of mine, Sam Robinson, and he and I played against Carter and Chilvers.  Robinson is one of the best amateurs in the country and we defeated our opponents handily.

It was a merry party which gathered about the table which had been spread under the trees near the club house.  Oak Cliff is the only club which Woodvale recognises as a rival, and the Wilson’s entertained us charmingly.  Mr. Harding was in great spirits.

“I won!” he announced as he returned with our elongated and smiling host.  “Licked Wilson, trifoliums and all, right here on his own ground!  But he found a Rumex and a lot of other weeds, so he don’t care.”

Miss Harding and I had discovered an oil painting in the club library which interested us, and when coffee and cigars had been served I asked Mr. Wilson about its history.

“Robinson gave it to the club,” he said, “he can tell its story better than I can.”

“It’s an odd sort of a yarn,” began Robinson.  “Last fall an artist friend of mine of the name of Powers wrote a letter inviting me to come and spend a few weeks with him in a camp he had established on the upper waters of the Outrades River in northeastern Quebec.  He was there sketching and loafing, and I took my golf clubs and went.  While he painted I batted balls around a cleared space in the forest, fished, hunted and had so much fun that we stayed there until cold weather set in.  Then we loaded up a boat and started down the river with a guide.”