“San-ndy!”
The three on the verandah jumped. That crisp summons, that peculiar
inflection meant but one thing. Chess! Sandy cast a swift agonized
glance about him, seeking an immediate mode of escape. He was slipping
cat-footed and doubled over along the back of the swinging couch on the
verandah, when again came the imperative summons, this time with even
more deadly significance.
“Sandy! In here, sir!”
“Yessir, I’m comin’, sir.”
Now it happened that the foreman of O Bar O had come especially over
to the ranch house, accompanied by the son and daughter of P. D. to
announce to his employer the discharge of Cheerio. It was an ironclad
rule of O Bar O that no “hand” upon the place should be dismissed
without his case first being examined before the final court of
judgment in the person of P. D. This was merely a formality, for P.
D. was accustomed to O. K. the acts of his foreman. Nevertheless, it
was one of the customs that could not be ignored. What is more, a man
reported for his final pay to the supreme boss of the ranch.
It was also the law at O Bar O that such discharges and reports should
be made after the working hours in the field. In the present instance,
Bully Bill had harkened to the advice of his assistant and discharged
Cheerio at the noon hour. O Bar O, he contended, could not afford to
risk its prestige by having in its employ for even a few more hours
a man who had acted at the corrals as had the Englishman. Therefore,
having put his men back to work at the corrals, Bully Bill had come to
the house to report to his employer.
That Sandy summons was unmistakable. The noble and ancient game was
about to be played. It was well-known lese majeste to interrupt when
the game was in progress. Bully Bill and the young McPhersons looked at
each other in consternation and dismay.
Sandy, in his ragged and soiled overalls, one of the “galluses” missing
and the other hitched in place with a safety pin, groaned aloud, then
shuffled unwillingly into the house. Rebellion bristled and stuck
out of every inch of the reluctant and disgusted boy. At that moment
Sandy loathed chess above everything else on earth. It was a damfool
game that no other boy in the country was forced to play. Sandy could
not see why he should be singled out as a special victim. Sullenly he
seated himself before the hated board. Blindly he lifted and moved a
black pawn forward two paces. His father’s eyes snapped through his
glasses.
“Since when did it become the custom for the Black to move before the
White?” he demanded fiercely.
Sandy coughed and replaced the pawn. His father took the first move
with his white pawn.
Now when Sandy McPherson entered thus unwillingly into the ranch house
he passed not alone into the place. Close upon his heels, silently
and unseen by the absorbed master of the house, followed the yellow
dog, Viper. He slunk in fact along behind chairs and tables, for well
Viper knew he was on forbidden and hostile territory. Reaching the
great, overstuffed sofa that stood in soft luxury before the big stone
fireplace, Viper leaped soundlessly aboard, and a moment later was
snuggled well down among the numerous sofa pillows and cushions that
were the creations of Hilda’s feminine hands.
P. D. McPherson had his scientific opinion touching upon the subject of
dogs. To a limited extent, he had experimented upon the canine race,
but he had not given the subject the thought or the work bestowed on
his other subjects, as he considered animals of this sort were placed
on earth more for the purpose of ornament and companionship rather
than for utilization by the human race, as in the case of horses,
cattle, pigs, etc. O Bar O possessed some excellent examples of P.
D.’s experiments. He had produced some quite remarkable cattle dogs, a
cross between collie and coyote in looks and trained so that they were
almost as efficient in the work of cutting out and rounding-up cattle
as the cowboys. These dogs had been duly exhibited at the Calgary Fair
but the judgment upon them had so aroused the wrath of the indignant
P. D. that after a speech that became almost a classic in its way,
because of the variety and quality of its extraordinary words, P. D.
departed from the fair ground with his “thoroughbred mongrels” as the
“blank, blank, blank fool judges” had joshingly named them. P. D. was
not finished with his dog experiments “by a damn sight.” However, his
subjects at this time were held in excellent quarters pending the time
when P. D. would renew work upon them. Occasionally, said dogs were
brought forth for the inspection of their creator, but even they, good
products and even servants of O Bar O, knew better than to intrude into
his private residences.
Of Viper’s existence at the present stage in his career, P. D. was
totally ignorant. He supposed, in fact, that this miserable little
specimen of the mongrel race had been duly executed, for such had been
his stern orders, when at an inconvenient time Viper had first thrust
himself upon the notice of his master’s father.
P. D. knew not that such execution was stayed through the weakness
of the executioner, who had hearkened to the heartrending pleas for
clemency and mercy that had poured in a torrent from Sandy, supported
by the pitying Hilda. Sandy had pledged himself moreover to see that
his dog was kept out of sight and sound of his parent.
Of all his possessions, Sandy valued Viper the most. Ever since the
day when he had traded a whole sack of purloined sugar for the ugly
little yellow puppy, Sandy had loved his dog. He had “raised” him “by
hand,” in the beginning actually wrapping the puppy up in a towel and
forcing him to suckle from a baby bottle acquired at the trading-post
especially for that purpose. All that that dog was or would be, he owed
to Sandy McPherson. Sandy considered him “a perfect gentleman” in many
ways, one who could “put it all over those pampered kennel fellows.”
Viper could bark “Thank you” for a bone as intelligibly as if he had
uttered the words; he could wipe his mouth, blow his nose, suppress a
yawn with an uplifted paw, and weep feelingly. He could dance a jig,
turn somersaults, balance a ball on his nose, and he could laugh as
realistically as a hyena. Not only was he possessed of these valuable
talents, but Viper had demonstrated his value by services to the ranch
which only his master fully appreciated. The barns, when Viper was at
hand, were kept free of cats and poultry and other stock that had no
right to be there, and Sandy’s job of bringing home the milk cows in
the morning and evening was successfully transferred to Viper. Sandy
had merely to say:
“Gawn! Git ’em in,” and the little dog would be off like a flash,
through the barnyard, out into the pasture, and up the hill to where
cattle were grazing. He would pick out from among them the ten head of
milk stock, snap at their heels till they were formed into a separate
bunch, and drive them down to the milk sheds.
Viper’s continued existence at O Bar O, therefore, was most desired
by his master. By some miracle, due largely to P. D.’s absorption in
his own important affairs, the little dog had escaped the notice or
especial observation of Sandy’s father. Once he had indeed looked
absently at the dog as he passed at the heels of Sandy, and he had
actually remarked at that time on the “Indian dogs” that were about the
place, and that should be kept toward the camps.
In the hurry and rush of events of this especial day, Viper was
forgotten, and the excited Sandy had omitted to lock him up in the
barn, as was his custom, when he went to the house.
So far as P. D. was concerned, Viper was a dead dog. Very much alive in
fact, however, was Sandy’s dog, as curled up on that couch of luxury
he bit and snapped at elusive fleas that are no respectors of places
and things and thrive on a dog’s back whether he be lying upon a
bed of straw or sand or, as in the present instance, curled up on an
overstuffed sofa.
Meanwhile, as Sandy made his unwilling moves, and while Viper
disappeared into the land of oblivion through the medium of dog sleep,
a whispered council of war was held on the front verandah.
“Go in and speak to him now. The game may run on till midnight. You
know Dad! If, by any chance, Sandy puts up a good fight and prolongs
the game, he’ll have it to do all over again and again until Dad beats
him hard, and if Sandy plays a poor game, then he’ll be as sore no
one’ll be able to go near him and he’ll make me take his place. So
there you are. You may as well take the bull by the horns right now,
and hop to it.”
The woman tempted and the man did fall.
The foreman of O Bar O, endeavouring to put firmness and resolution
into his softened step, took his courage into his hands and entered
the forbidden presence of the chess players. Hat in hand, nervously
twisting it about, tobacco shifted respectfully into one cheek, this
big, lanky gawk of a man cleared his throat apologetically. Only
a slight twitch of one bushy eyebrow betrayed the fact of P. D.’s
irritated knowledge of the presence of intruders.
“Dad!” Hilda’s voice trembled slightly. She appreciated the gravity of
interrupting her father’s game, but Hilda was in that exalted mood of
the hero who sacrifices his own upon the altar of necessity and duty.
What had occurred at the corrals was a climax to her own judgment and
condemnation of the prisoner before the bar.
P. D. affected not to hear that “Dad!” On the contrary, he elaborately
raised his hand, paused it over a knight, lifted the knight and set it
from a black to a red square. Dangerous and violent consequences, Hilda
knew, were more than likely to follow should she persist. A matter of
life and death concerned not the chess monomaniac when a game was in
progress. Not till the old gambler could shout the final:
“Check to your king, sir! Game!” should man, woman, child, or dog dare
to address the players.
“Dad!”
P. D.’s hand, which had just left the aforementioned Knight, made a
curious motion. It closed up into a fist that shot into the palm of
his left hand. Up flashed bright old eyes, glaring fiercely through
double-lensed glasses. Up lifted the shaggy old head, jerked amazedly
from one to the other of the discomfited pair before him.
“What’s this? What’s this? Business hours changed, heh? Who the----”
Bully Bill cleared his throat elaborately and lustered a clumsy step
forward.
“Just come over to the house to tell you I’ve fired his royal nibs,
sir, and he’ll be over for his pay.”
“You’ve _what_?”
“Fired----”
Half arising from his feet, P. D. emitted a long, blood-curdling,
blistering string of original curses that caused even his hardened
foreman to blench. That raised voice, those unmistakable words of
wrath penetrated across the room and into the cocked ear of Sandy’s
sleeping dog. Full and exciting as the owner of Viper made all of his
days, the exhausted animal never failed, when opportunity offered, to
secure such rest as fate might allow him from the wild career through
which his master daily whirled him. Nevertheless that raised and testy
voice, for all Viper knew, might be directed against the one he loved
best on earth.
Viper turned a moist nose mournfully to the ceiling, and ere the last
of the scorching words of P. D. McPherson had left his lips, a low
moan of exquisite sympathy and pain came from the direction of the
overstuffed couch. Instantly the red, alarmed flush of guilt and terror
flooded the freckled face of the owner of the dog, as wriggling around
to escape that raised hand of his furious parent, Sandy added chaos to
confusion by upsetting the sacred chess board.
There was a roar from the outraged chess player, a whining protest
from the boy, ducking out of his way, and at that critical moment,
Viper sprang to the defence of his master. Planting himself before P.
D. McPherson, the little dog barked furiously and menacingly, and then
fled before the foot kicked out for dire punishment. Pandemonium broke
loose in that lately quiet room, dedicated to the scientific, silent
game of chess.
“Who let that dog in?” roared the enraged ranchman.
“He come in himself,” averred Sandy, quailing and trembling before his
father’s terrible glance, and casting a swift, furtive look about him
for an easy means of exit.
“Get him out! Get him out! Get him out!” shouted P. D., and, seizing a
golf club, he jabbed at the swiftly disappearing animal. For awhile,
dog and boy cavorted through the room, the one racing to safe places
under sofas and behind chairs and piano, and the other coaxing,
pleading, threatening, till at last, crawling cravenly along the floor
on his stomach, Viper gave himself up to justice.
“Hand him over to me,” demanded P. D.
“Wh-what’re you goin’ to do to him?” quavered the boy, an eye on
the niblick in P. D.’s hand, and holding his treasured possession
protectingly to his ragged breast.
“Never mind what I’m going to do. You hand that dog to me, do you hear
me, and do it G-- D-- quick!”
“Here he is then,” whimpered Sandy, and set the dog at his father’s
feet.
There was a flash, a streak across the room, and the dog had
disappeared into some corner of the great ranch house. The boy, with a
single glance at his father’s purpling face, took to his heels as if
his life were imperilled and followed in the steps of his dog.