P. D. was taking his “cat-nap” that evening in his “office,” a room
that opened off from the dining-room, where the old rancher kept his
account books and other papers connected with the running of his
business. He was enjoying a sweet sleep, in which he dreamed of three
white pawns checking a black King. The three pawns were his. The King
was Cheerio’s. Something unpleasant and having nothing to do with the
soothing picture he was enjoying, awoke him. He blinked fiercely,
cleared his throat, sat up in the big chair, and glared disapprovingly
at his daughter who had precipitated herself almost into his lap.
“What is the meaning of this? Is it, then, 8.30?”
“No, Dad. You’ve quarter of an hour still.”
“Then what in thunderation do you mean by waking me for, then? Get
away! Get away! I don’t like to be pawed over in this manner.”
“Dad, I want to talk to you about something. I--I must talk to you.”
“When you wish to talk to me, you will choose an hour when I have the
leisure to hear you.”
“Dad, you won’t let me speak to you through the day. You always say
you’re calculating something, and now you simply _must_ listen to me.
It’s vitally important that you should. You _must_!”
“Must, heh?”
“_Please_, Dad!”
“Well, well, what is it? Speak up. Speak up.”
He took his watch out, glanced at it, scowled, paid no attention to
what his daughter was saying until the word “chess” escaped her, when
his glance fixed her.
“What’s that?”
“I said if you’d only _defend_ your King instead of everlastingly
attacking, don’t you see, you’d stand a better chance. I’ve noticed on
two or three occasions that he’s left great openings where I’m sure you
could----”
“Are you trying to teach your father the game of chess?”
“Oh, no, Dad, but you know, two heads are better than one. I’ve heard
you say so.”
“Two _mature_ heads----”
“Mine’s mature. I’m eighteen, and I think----”
“You’re not supposed to think. You’re not equipped for thinking. Women
have a constitutional brain impediment that absolutely prevents them
coherently or rationally----”
“Dad, look here. Don’t you know that it’s November 20th? The cattle are
still on the range and everybody in the country is talking about us.
They think we’ve gone plumb crazy. And why? Just because _he_ wants to
go on and on beating you and----”
“What’s this? What’s this? A discourse of depreciation of a prized
employee of O Bar O?”
“Father!” Hilda seldom called her father “Father,” but she believed
herself to be in a desperate situation and desperate speech and
measures were necessary. “Father, you have simply got to beat him
to-night. You----”
“You leave the room, miss.”
“Dad, I----”
“Leave the room!” roared P. D.
“Oh, if you only knew how unhappy I am,” cried Hilda piteously. Her
father took her by the shoulders and turned her bodily out, closing the
door sharply between them, and returning to pace the floor of his own
office, and work off some of the upsetting influences which might not
be well for that calmness and poise of mind necessary for a game of
chess.
The ranch house was a great, unwieldy building, with a wide hall
dividing on one side the enormous living-room and on the other the
dining-room, beyond which was P. D.’s office and study.
Hilda shot out of her father’s office into the darkened dining-room,
and from there into the lighted hall, where she collided with the
entering Cheerio. On him, she turned the last vials of her wrath.
“I’ve something to say to you. Everything on this ranch is at a
standstill on your account. If we don’t gather in our cattle soon,
there’ll be a lot of lost and dead O Bar O stock when the first
blizzard comes. I wish you’d never come here. You’ve pulled my old Dad
down, and look what you’ve done to me--look!--I’m glad you’re going
away! I don’t want ever to see your face again!”
Even as she said the words, Hilda longed to recall them. Cheerio’s hurt
look was more than she could bear, and she fled up the stairs like one
pursued. He heard the bang of her door, and a strangely softened look
stole into his face as he turned into the living-room.
The chess board was still set up, the men standing on the positions of
the previous night, when the game had remained unfinished at the ending
hour of ten o’clock. Cheerio cast a swift glance about him, studied the
board a moment, and then with another furtive glance, quickly changed
the position of a Black Queen and a White Pawn. His hand was scarcely
off the board when Hilda McPherson slipped from between the portieres.
As swiftly and passionately as she had fled up the stairs, so she
had run down again, compunction overwhelming her, torn and troubled
by that look on the man’s face. But her reaction turned to amazement
and indignant scorn as she watched him at the chess board. If she had
repented her harsh treatment of him before, now, more than ever, she
ascended in judgment upon him. His glance fell guiltily before her
accusing one. Hilda seized upon the first word that came to her tongue,
regardless of its odiousness.
“Cheat! Cheat! Now I understand how you’ve been beating my Dad! You’ve
been changing the positions. You can’t deny it! I’ve caught you
red-handed. Oh, oh! I might have guessed it. To think that for a single
moment I believed in you, and now to discover you’re not only a----”
He flinched, almost as if physically struck, and turned white. Then his
face stiffened. His heels came together with that peculiarly little
military click that was characteristic of him when moved. His face was
masklike as he stared straight at Hilda. Something in his silence,
some element of loneliness and helplessness about this man clutched at
the stormy heart of the girl, and stopped the words upon her lips, as
her father came into the room. Hilda had the strange feeling of a wild
mother at bay. Angry with her child, she yet was ready to fight for and
defend it. All unconsciously, she had covered her lips with her hands
to crush back the hot words that were surging up to expose him to her
father.
“What’s this? Why so much excitement? Why all this hysterical waste of
force? It carried even to my office--electrical waves of angry sound.
No doubt could be heard across at the bunkhouse or the barns. I’ll make
a test some day. Sit down, sit down. If you wish to witness our game,
oblige us with silence, if you please.”
To Cheerio he said:
“Be seated, sir. You will pardon the excitement of my daughter. Youth
is life’s tempestuous period--hard to govern--hard to restrain, a
pathological, problematical time of life. Be seated, sir. My move, I
believe, sir.”
Hilda felt weak and curiously broken. She sat forward in her chair,
her eyes so dark and large that her face, no longer rosy, seemed now
peculiarly small and young.
Old P. D. scratched his chin and pinched his lower lip as he examined
the board through his glasses. Cheerio was not looking at the board,
his sad, somewhat stern glance was pinned upon Hilda.
There was a pause, and suddenly P. D.’s face jerked forward. A crafty
twitch of the left eyebrow. He glanced up at Cheerio, moved a Bishop
three paces to the right. Cheerio withdrew his eyes reluctantly from
the drooping Hilda, looked absently at the board and made the obvious
move. Instantly P. D.’s hand shot toward his Queen. A pause, and
then suddenly through the room, like the pop of a gun, P. D.’s shout
resounded:
“Check!”
Pause.
“Check!”
This time louder.
“Check to your King, sir! Game! Game!” Up leaped P. D. McPherson,
sprang toward his opponent, smashed him upon the shoulder, gripped him
by both hands, and shouted:
“Beat you! By Gad! I’d rather beat you than go to Chicago. Damn your
hands and feet, you’re a dashed damned fine player, and it’s an honour
to beat you, sir! Come along with me, sir!”
He dragged his opponent out, and arm and arm they hurried across to
the bunkhouse to proclaim the “damnfine news” and to order all hands
of the O Bar O to set out on the following morning upon that annual
Fall round-up which had been put off for so long. But before Cheerio
had left the room, and even while her father was all but embracing him,
his glance had gone straight into the eyes of Hilda, pale as death and
slowly arising.
Like one moving in sleep, feeling her way as she passed, Hilda
McPherson followed her father and Cheerio. But she could go no farther
than the verandah. There she sat crouched down on the steps, her
face in her hands, overwhelmed by the unbearable pain that seemed to
clutch at her heart. The truth had shocked Hilda into a realization of
the inexcusable wrong and insult that she had dealt to this man. No
words were needed. She comprehended exactly what had happened in that
room. Cheerio, she now knew, had changed the men on the board for her
father’s advantage. And she had called him a cheat!
She took her hands down from her face, and spoke the words aloud:
“I called him a cheat! I called him a--coward! Oh, what am I to do?”
The man who had been sitting in the swinging couch, and whom she had
not seen, strolled across the verandah and came directly down the steps
to where the unhappy Hilda was crouched.
“Miss McPherson! Can I do anything for you?”
Hilda was in too much pain to feel either surprise or resentment for
the intrusion. She said piteously:
“I called him a cheat! a coward!”
“A coward--_him_!”
Duncan Mallison’s face darkened with an almost angry red.
“You may as well know this much at least,” he said roughly. “The man
you called a coward won the Victoria Cross for an act of sublime
heroism during the war.”
Hilda stood up. She looked beaten and small. She was wrenching her
hands together as she backed toward the door. Her lips were quivering.
She tried to speak, but the words could not come, and she shook her
head dumbly.
The reporter, who probably understood human nature far better than
the average person, was touched by the girl’s evident misery. He put
his hand under Hilda’s arm, and guided her to the door. There he said
soothingly:
“Now, don’t worry. Everything’s all right, and you’re in luck. We’re
going to take him on the paper. Fine job. He’ll make out great. So,
don’t worry. First thing in the morning we’ll be off, and you can
depend upon me to do the best I can for him. He’s a darned good pal.”