THE FEMININE VIEWPOINT

by and about women

THE WINNER

PART I

by Marlin Prentiss

٤٠٤

The unshaded eighteenth green of the Riverdale Country Club took the full blast of the mid-afternoon August sun and hurled it back in sluggish, shimmering waves of heat, thick as water. The shirtsleeved and summer-frocked gallery, surprisingly large for a weekday afternoon, had already formed its wilted ranks around the edge of the green when the small white ball hit the smooth turf, bounced

one

once, and rolled to a stop eight feet from the cup. There was a brief murmur, then silence again, as Dana Farrell toiled up the hill and stood at the edge of the green regarding her lie with somber intentness.

A tall woman, broad of shoulder, with strongly muscled calves and forearms, Dana Farrell accepted the putter and a lighted cigarette from her caddy and began to circle

34