Bully Bill stretched his long neck, and appeared to be troubled with
his Adam’s apple. His eye did not meet the ireful one of his employer.
“I came over to the house,” he repeated, with elaborate casualness, “to
tell you I’ve fired his royal nibs.”
“Fired what? Who? The King of the Jews or who in the name of chattering
crows do you mean?
“And you come to me at the hour of two-thirty in the afternoon to
announce the discharge of an employee of the O Bar O? Eh?”
“Wa-al, I reckon, boss, that O Bar O can’t afford to keep no
white-livered hound in its employ for even the rest of the day.”
“What crime has he committed?”
“Well, it ain’t a crime exactly, but--well, boss, I give him an easy
job to do--a kid’s job--Sandy could a done it, and I’m switched if he
didn’t double over and faint dead away at the first bat of the brand.
Never seen nothing like it in my life. At the first sniff! Why, a baby
could----”
“Do you wish me to understand that you fired an employee of my ranch
because he had the temerity to be _ill_?”
His irritation, far from being appeased, was steadily mounting.
“Dad,” interrupted Hilda, stepping forward suddenly. “It wasn’t
illness. It was worse than that. It was plumb cowardice.”
“Cowardice! Look in the dictionary for the proper definition of
that word, young woman. A man doesn’t faint from cowardice. He runs
away--hides--slinks off----”
“That’s what he did--in France. He confessed it when he came to. Tried
to excuse himself by saying it was constitutional. Just as if anyone
could be a constitutional coward. Bully Bill is right, Dad. O Bar O
cannot employ that kind of men.”
“Who is running this ranch?” demanded P. D., with rising wrath, thumping
upon the table, and upsetting the last of the chess men and then the
table itself.
“But, Dad----”
“Silence!”
Mutinously, the girl stood her ground, catching her breath in sobbing
excitement.
“But, Dad, you don’t understand----”
“One more word from you, miss, and you leave the room. One more word,
and we’ll cut out the gymkhana at Grand Valley next week.”
Turning to the foreman:
“Now, sir, explain yourself--explain the meaning of this damnation,
unwarranted intrusion into my house.”
Slowly, gathering courage as he went along, Bully Bill told the tale of
the branding.
P. D., finger tips of either hand precisely touching, heard him through
with ill-concealed impatience and finally snapped:
“And you adjudge a man a coward because of a few words said while in
a condition of semi-hysteria and delirium. Pi-shshsh! Any half-baked
psychologist would tell you that a man is not responsible for his
vague utterances at such a time. The evidence you adduce, sir, is
inconclusive, not to say preposterous, and damned piffling and
trifling. By Gad! sir, the rôle of judge and jury does not become you.
You’re hired to take care of my cows, not to blaggard my men. What’s
been this man’s work?”
“General hand, sir.”
“Efficient?”
“Ain’t no good at chores. He’s the bunk at fencing. Ain’t a bit o’ help
with implements; no account in the brush; ain’t worth his salt in the
hay field; but--” reluctantly the foreman finished, “--he’s a damned
good rider, sir. Best at O Bar O, and he’s O. K. with the doegies.”
“And you ask me to fire a first-class rider at a time when the average
’bo that comes to a ranch barely knows the front from the hind part of
an animal?”
“Dad,” interjected Hilda again, her cheeks aflame. “Look here, you may
as well know the truth about this man. He was engaged in the first
place as a joke--nothing but a joke, and because Bully Bill was late
at the haying and said we’d have to cut out the races this year, and
things were dull, and he took him on to liven things up, didn’t you,
Bill?”
Bully Bill nodded.
“Well, we’ve had tenderfeet before at O Bar O, and we’ve all taken a
hand stringing them, as you know, but this one was different. I--I
disliked him from the very first, and----”
“Ah, g’wan! You’re stuck on him, and you know it!”
Sandy, who had returned as far as the door, gave forth this disgusted
taunt. Upon him his sister whirled with somewhat of her father’s fury.
“How _dare_ you say that?”
“’Cause it’s true, and I told him so, too.”
“You told _him_--_him_--that I--I--I----”
Hilda was almost upon the verge of hysterics. She was inarticulate with
rage and excitement. The thought of Sandy confiding in Cheerio that she
was “stuck” on him was unendurable.
“Why so much excitement?” queried her father. “Do you realize that the
flood of words you have unharnessed would have force and power enough,
if attached to machinery, to run----”
“Do you think I’m going to stand for that--that--_mutt_ accusing me of
caring for a--_coward_?”
At that moment, a gentle cough at the door turned all eyes in its
direction. Natty and clean, in his grey English suit--the one he had
worn that first day he had come to O Bar O--Cheerio was standing in the
room looking about him pleasantly at the circle of expressive faces. No
sooner had the girl’s angry glance crossed his own friendly one, than
out popped the despised word:
“Cheerio!” said Cheerio.
His glance rested deeply upon Hilda for a moment, and then quietly
withdrew. Sandy, whose allegiance to his former hero and oracle had
been somewhat shattered by the corral incidents, suddenly grinned at
his friend and favoured him with a knowing wink.
“Aw, she’s hot under the collar just ’cause I told her I told you about
her being stuck on you.”
“_I_--_I_--just fancy _me_ stuck on him! Just as if _any_ one could be
stuck on someone they--they--despised and hated and----”
The words were pouring out breathlessly from the almost sobbing Hilda.
Cheerio regarded her gravely and then looked away. At sight of the
upturned chess table, he whistled softly, stepped forward and set it in
place. Stooping again, he picked up the scattered chessmen and then, to
the amazement of all in that room, Cheerio calmly proceeded to set the
men precisely in place upon the board. As he put the King, the Queen,
the Bishop, the Knight and the Castles into their respective places,
a curious expression, one of amazement not unmixed with joy, quivered
over the weatherbeaten face of old P. D. McPherson. When the pawns were
upon their squares, almost mechanically the Chess Champion of Western
Canada pulled up his chair to the table. Over his glasses he peered up
at the Englishman.
“You play chess, sir?”
“A bit.”
A speck of colour came out on either of the old man’s high cheek bones.
“Very good, sir. We will have a game.”
“Awfully sorry, sir. I’d jolly well like a game, b-b-but the fact is,
I’m--er--what you call in Canada--hiking.”
“Hiking--nothing,” muttered P. D., as he set his own side into place.
“I allow you the Whites, sir. First move, if you please.”
“Awfully sorry, sir, b-but the fact is, I’m d-d-d-discharged, you know.
Mr. Bully Bill here----”
“Damn Bully Bill! I’m the boss of the O Bar O! Your move, sir.”
Cheerio blinked, hesitated, and then lifted his pawn and set it two
paces forward.
Slowly, carefully, P. D. responded with a black pawn in the same
position.
Cheerio made no second move. He was leaning across the board, looking
not at the chessmen but straight into the face of his employer.
“Tell you what I’ll do, governor” (he had always referred to P. D. as
“governor”) “I’ll play you for my job. What do you say? One game a
night till I’m beat. I’ll work through the day as usual, and play for
my job at night. There’s a sporting proposition. How about it?”
A snort came from Sandy and a smile from Hilda.
“The poor simp!” audibly chuckled the boy. Hilda was laconic and to the
point:
“Hm! You’ll be hitting the trail in short order.”
P. D. merely looked over his glasses with a jerk, nodded and grunted:
“Very good, sir, I accept your terms. Your move!”
Cheerio’s Knight made its eccentric jump, and after a long pause the
ranchman’s Bishop swept the board. Cheerio put forward another pawn,
and down came P. D.’s Queen. His opponent’s King was now menaced from
two sides, on the one by P. D.’s Queen and on the other by his Bishop.
Cheerio’s expression was blank, as after a pause he neatly picked up
and put another pawn one pace forward. P. D. was holding his lower
lip between forefinger and thumb, a characteristic attitude when in
concerned thought. There was deep silence in the room, and it was
fifteen minutes before the ranchman made his next move; ten before the
Englishman made his.
Hilda’s breath was suspended, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes wide with
excitement, while Sandy, his mouth agape, watched the moves with
unabated amazement.
Bully Bill, meanwhile, discreetly departed. Once Cheerio had taken
his seat opposite the old chess monomaniac his foreman realized that
“the jig was up.” He did not admit defeat to his men. That would have
been a reflection upon his own influence at O Bar O. Bully Bill gave
forth the information that Cheerio had given a satisfactory explanation
of his action at the branding, and the “confession” which Holy Smoke
had overheard must’ve been “a sort of a mistake. Because there ain’t
nothing to it,” said Bully Bill, chewing hard on his plug, and avoiding
the amazed eye of the injured Ho.
Meanwhile, in the living-room of O Bar O, two more moves had been made
and the chessmen faced each other in an intricate position for the one
side. With eyes bulging, Sandy leaned forward, staring at the board,
while Hilda drew her chair close to her father’s. Slowly there dawned
upon the son and daughter of P. D. McPherson--no mean chess players,
despite their aversion for the game--the realization that a trap was
being deliberately forged to close in upon their father’s forces. Hilda
wanted to cry out, to warn her old Dad, but a pronounced twitching of
P. D.’s left eye revealed the fact that he was sensitively cognizant
of his danger. Hilda’s hand crept unconsciously to her throat, as if
to still her frightened breathing, as she gazed with incredulous eyes
at the diabolical movements of the man she now assured herself she
bitterly and positively detested and loathed.
There was a long silence. Another move and a longer pause. P. D.’s
trembling old hand poised above a Knight. Pause. A pawn slipped to the
left of the Knight. The Knight half raised--no place to go--sacrificed.
Out came the Queen. A pause. The Englishman’s Bishop swept clear across
the board and took up a cocky position directly in the path of P. D.’s
King. He moved to take the Bishop, saw the Castle in line, retreated,
and found himself facing Cheerio’s Queen. Another move, and the Knight
had him. A very long pause. A search for a place to go. P. D.’s dulled
eyes gazed through their specs at Cheerio, and the latter murmured
politely:
“Check to your king, sir. Game.”
The dazed P. D. stared in stunned silence at the board, forefinger and
thumb pinching his underlip.
“Holy Salmon!” burst from Sandy. A sob of wrath came from the big chair
where sat the daughter of the former chess champion.
“Awfully sorry, governor,” said Cheerio, gently.
P. D. reached across a shaking old hand.
“I congratulate you, sir,” said the defeated one. “You play a damned
good game.”
For the first time in his chess life, P. D. McPherson had been soundly
licked.