CHAPTER XVII
The news fled like a prairie fire. From ranch to ranch, from the trading stores that dotted the foothill country, up to Banff, where P. D.’s packhorses were carrying the tourists into the supposed wilds of the Rocky Mountains and down to the cowtown of Cochrane. Here the news was received with consternation and amazement.
P. D.’s name was a household word. His cattle, his grain, so ran the legend, had made this part of the country famous throughout the civilized world. And as for chess: The country people knew but vaguely the meaning of the word; but they did know at least that it was associated in some illustrious way with their distinguished neighbour, P. D. McPherson. He was a Chess Champion. “Champion” was a name to conjure with. It put P. D.’s name upon several occasions into the newspapers; in obscure parts where they printed riddles and conundrums and funny stuff for children, but also whenever P. D.’s exploits at the cattle fairs were summed up in the local press, and his picture appeared on the front page and he gave out interviews predicting the ruin of the country or its ascendancy above all other countries in the world, there was always a line included about P. D. being the Chess Champion of Western Canada and potential champion of all of Canada.
Even the riders on the range and the crews at the road and lumber camps stopped each other to gossip about the incredulous news.
“Did you hear about P. D.?” one would inquire.
“No, what about him?”
“He got beat. Beat at chess.”
“G’wan!”
“Sure did.”
“You don’t say. Who done it? Betchu some Yank come on over from the States, huh?”
“Not on your life. One of his own men done it.”
“G’wan! Who?”
“Well, that English fly, the Cheerio Duke they call him, the one they picked off the road in July—he licked the pants off P. D.”
“You don’t say. Him! Why, he’s nothing but a tenderfoot. He don’t know nothing.”
“Don’t he, though! That’s where you’re off your bat. What he don’t know, ain’t worth knowing, believe me.”
“Well, you hear all sorts o’ tales about him. Who is he, anyway?”
“Dunno, and nobody else does. But one thing’s sure, he licked P. D. Licked him the first time they played, and he’s kept it up every night since. They’s a bet on. He’s to hold his job till P. D. licks him, and from the looks of things ’pears like he’s got a permanent job. And say—I heard that the old man ses he ain’t goin’ over to the States to play for championship there until he’s trimmed Cheerio chap.”
“I want to know! The Calgary Blizzard had a whole column ’bout him goin’ over to the States to beat the Champion there.”
“Well, he’s got his hands full right here.”
“Guess I’ll ride over and take a look-in at O Bar.”
“Not a chance. Say, the old man’s sore as a dog. Ain’t lettin’ a soul into the house. Has himself shut in and ain’t taking a bite of air and hardly any eats. Just gone plumb crazy on that chess game. It’s something like checkers, only it ain’t the same. You got to use your nut to play it.”
“Well, here’s to old P. D. Hope he wins.”
“Here’s to him, as you say, but he ain’t got a chance. That Cheerio duke ain’t no amachoor.”
Alberta, as all the world is beginning to know, is a gambler’s paradise. In this great boom land, where every day brings its new discoveries of gold, oil, coal, silver, salts, platinum and all the minerals this world of ours hides within herself, one tosses a penny on life itself. From all parts of the world come people whose lives and hopes are dependent upon games of chance, be they of the board, a pack of cards, the stock market, the oil fields or the great gamble of the land. Gambling is instinctive and intuitive in Alberta. A chance is taken on anything. The man in the city and the man upon the land throwing the dice of fate upon the soil are equally concerned in gambling.
Cheerio’s proposition, therefore, and the way in which it was rumoured he continued to beat the veteran chess player appealed to the sporting sense of the country. It was not long before money was up and bets were on the players. News of the game swept down finally to Calgary, and a sporting editor dispatched a reporter upon the job. The reporter liked his assignment first rate, since it included a trip into the foothills and an indefinite leave of absence. He was not, however, received with open arms at O Bar O.
Hilda, when he revealed the fact that he was a reporter, snapped the screen door closed, and only after the most diplomatic argument on the part of the newspaper man finally consented to announce his presence at O Bar O to her father.
“Just tell him,” said the reporter, “that I only want a word or two from him, and I’ll not print a line that he doesn’t approve of.”
To this perfectly amicable message, P. D. (invisible but plainly heard shouting his explosive reply) returned:
“No, G— D— it. I’ll see no snooping, spying, G— D— reporter. I’ll have none of ’em on my place. I’ll have ’em thrown off. This is no public place, and I’ll have no G— D— reporter trespassing upon my G— D— privacy.”
Hilda, back at the screen door:
“My father says he doesn’t want to see you, and if I were you, I’d beat it, because we’ve got some pretty husky men on this place and you don’t look any too strong. There’s no telling what might happen to you, you know.”
“Will you just ask your father, then, if he will give me, through you, a statement as to the chances of Canada winning the World Championship, either through him or his present opponent. What we are chiefly interested in—that is to say, the readers of the Calgary Blizzard—is whether or not we are to have the Cup for Canada. It doesn’t matter whether Mr. McPherson or his opponent gets it for us.”
“Oh, doesn’t it, though!” Hilda could have hit him with pleasure. So it didn’t matter to the big, heartless public whether her Dad or that Englishman won or not.
“Well, would you mind asking your father just that?”
Hilda, inside:
“Dad, he wants to know whether either you or—him” (Hilda referred always to Cheerio as “him” or “he”) “will be going to Chicago for the tournament now.”
“You tell that bloody young news hound that he’ll do well to clear off the place in a damn quick hurry, or we’ll make it a damned sight hotter for him than the place he’s eventually headed for.”
Hilda, back at screen door:
“My father says for you to clear off the place, and I advise you to, too. You’ve a nerve to come here to get stuff to print against my father in the paper. I’d just like to see you dare to print anything about us. It’s none of the newspapers’ business, and my father will win, anyway.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to have that line on the game. Did he win last night?”
“I’m not going to answer a single question. We don’t want a single thing to get in the papers.”
“But it’s already been in the paper.”
“What?”
“Here you are—half a column story.”
Hilda came out on to the porch, and seized and scanned the paper. Her face burned as she read, and the hot, angry tears arose in her eyes. How dared they publish for all the world to read that her old dad was being beaten each night by that Englishman? She whirled around on the inoffensive reporter.
“Who wrote that beastly stuff? It’s a damned shame. Just goes to show what your old newspapers are. Did you write it?”
“No, no,” hastily denied the reporter. “I was only assigned to the job to-day. That’s some outside stuff telephoned in, probably by one of your neighbours. I’m here to follow up—to get a special story, in fact. And look here, Miss McPherson—you’re Miss McPherson, aren’t you?—well, look here, it’s better for us to get the dope directly from yourselves than have to make it up. I’m here to get a story, and I’m going to get it.”
“Well, let me tell you, you’ll have some sweet time getting it.”
“I intend to stay here till I do.”
“Here on our steps? I’d like to see you.”
“Well, not exactly on the steps—but on the job, at all events, I’ll camp down the road by the river, and I can cover the story just as well from there.”
Hilda threw him a look of withering scorn. Pushed the screen door open, and banged it, as well as the inside door, in the reporter’s face.
He stood in thought a moment on the steps and then he jotted down:
“Beautiful young daughter of P. D. McPherson on guard over father. Inherits famous disposition. Declares that her father will win. Intimates that he, not his hitherto victorious opponent, will go to Chicago——”
At this juncture, and while he was jotting down the notes anent Hilda McPherson, Cheerio came up the steps and crossed the verandah toward the front door, followed by Sandy, who, much to the bitter indignation of his sister, was once again the Englishman’s satellite and admirer.
“Good evening,” said the reporter, cordially.
“Hello!” returned the unsuspicious Cheerio, and returned the grip of the newspaper man’s hand.
“I wonder if you could give me some information about this Englishman who’s playing opposite Mr. P. D. McPherson for the Western Championship and——”
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what f-f-for?” stammered Cheerio, taken aback by the question.
“I’m from the Calgary Blizzard and——”
“G-g-g-good God!”
“If you know the man who——”
“Gee! He’s him hisself!” chortled Sandy.
Cheerio was punching the electric bell persistently. Hilda, hurrying at the summons, opened the door inside, cast a haughty look from the reporter to Cheerio, and then reluctantly unhooked the latch and let the latter in. She closed both doors again with a snap.
Sandy, who had not followed Cheerio into the house, stood grinning up at the reporter, and the latter was seized with an inspiration. He returned the jeering stare of P. D.’s son with a man-to-man look of confidence. Nonchalantly, he brought forth a cigarette case and, extending it carelessly to Sandy, invited him to have one. Sandy, whose young lips had never touched the forbidden weed, helped himself with ostentatious carelessness and even accepted the light tendered from the other’s half finished stub.
“In a hurry?” asked the newspaper man.
“Nope.”
“Suppose we sit over here.”
The reporter indicated the steps, and Sandy leaned back against the pillar with the cigarette alternately between his two fingers or between his young lips.
“You’re P. D. McPherson’s son, are you not?”
“Yeh.”
“Well, what about this Englishman? I wonder if you can tell me something about him.”
“Sure,” said Sandy, ignoring a sudden quaking at the pit of his stomach, and blowing out an elaborate whiff of smoke. “Sure, I c’n tell you all about him.”