CHAPTER XVIII
If the orders issued from headquarters (viz. P. D. McPherson) had been implicitly obeyed, the life of the newspaper man would have been most uncomfortable. Even as it was, he was prudent enough to give the house a wide berth. “Dunc” Mallison was fond of fishing, and his assignment was in the nature of a vacation for him. He possessed a “dinky” little flivver, whose front seat turned back on hinges, transforming the interior into a tolerably comfortable bed, a la Pullman. Scouting along the banks of the Ghost River, which bounded one side of the O Bar O ranch, the newspaper man found an ideal place for a camp, not far from the cave where Cheerio painted of a Sunday in secret.
Though “Dunc” fished the greater part of the day, he nevertheless dispatched bulletins to his paper in town, and began work on a feature story concerning P. D., the mysterious Cheerio, Hilda McPherson, “beautiful daughter of the Chess Champion and famous rancher,” Sandy, the wise young son and heir of O Bar O, and the various other folk who made up that temperamental ranch. The reporter depended not upon personal interviews with P. D. himself after that first explosive-forced session, through the medium of the evidently belligerent Hilda. Sandy, the guileless and the garrulous, himself interested in the attractions of the Ghost River canyon, was a mine of information upon which the reporter drew at length. Sandy was unable to resist the cigarette case, nor did the resulting tumult in his stomach of that first day’s indulgence prevent his appearance at the newspaper man’s camp and the reindulgence in the noxious weed, which his father had once vehemently declared was “purely poisonous.”
Besides Sandy, Mallison had made the acquaintance of Cheerio. The latter, on his way to his “cave studio,” had paused at the sight of the reporter, fishing in the forbidden waters of the Ghost River. Now P. D. had nailed at the Bridge on the Banff Road, large signs, warning all aspiring fishermen to keep away from the Ghost River, and these prominent notices were signed “P. D. McPherson, Fish and Game Warden.” Cheerio, an employee of the O Bar O, was puzzled for a moment what to do in the circumstances, but the triumphant smile of the reporter as he held up three shining-bodied trout, disarmed the Englishman, who grinned back in sympathetic response, and a moment later was sitting on the bank beside the trespasser, filling his pipe from his old rubber pouch.
All of that quiet Sunday morning, the two fished and smoked, and though their conversation practically consisted of monosyllabic remarks about the water or the possibility of there being a pool farther up the river where their chances might be even better and grunts of satisfaction or exclamations of delight when something nibbled or bit at the end of the lines, almost unconsciously a quiet feeling of comradeship grew up between them, and each took the measure of the other and knew him for a kindred spirit.
In the middle of the afternoon, they counted with pride the results of the day’s work. Cheerio made a “rock stove” and built a fine bonfire in it, while Mallison cleaned and prepared the fish. While the bacon was spluttering upon the pan, Sandy came down through the bush, and squatting down before the reporter’s improvised table of an upturned suit case, he sniffed the odour of frying bacon hungrily and said vehemently, as his hands rested upon his stomach, “Oh, boy!” Mallison was an excellent cook, and Cheerio and Sandy were excellent eaters and they did justice to the fare set before them by the camper.
After the meal, the three “chinned,” as Sandy expressed it, until the deepening of the sun glow showed the end of the approaching day, and Sandy’s drowsy head slipped back upon the grass and his questions came irregularly and presently not at all. Then Cheerio dumped his pipe, shook the half-asleep boy, and said:
“Come on, old man. Time to get back,” and Sandy sat up with a start, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and unwillingly arose and moved toward Silver Heels, whose bridle had slipped down the slender trunk of the tree to which it had been loosely tied.
At the ranch house, the nightly games proceeded. Sometimes a game would end with a single night’s playing; at other times a game would drag along for a week.
Cheerio had won three games in succession, when he suggested that his opponent should be allowed a handicap. P. D. received this generous suggestion with hostility and fury.
“What for? What for? Because you win a damnation game or two, do you mean to insinuate that I am out of your class?”
“Nn-n-not at all, sir,” stammered Cheerio, “b-b-but you see, I’ve a b-b-bit of an advantage over you, sir. B-b-been playing ch-chess for a long time b-b-before coming to the ranch.”
It was true enough, P. D. admitted, that he was off his game on account of having had “only children and amateurs” to play with. Nevertheless he had not fallen to the damned handicap class. There were thirty-one days in the month; they had been playing but ten inconclusive and insignificant days; he was neither a cripple nor a moron and he’d give his opponent a dashed stiff fight before he was through with him, and he asked for no quarter whatsoever now.
The fierceness with which the old man took his well-meaning suggestion caused Cheerio to stammer further explanations. During his recent stay in Germany, so he said, he had played constantly, and the Germans were excellent players.
This was the first intimation that he had been in Germany, and the information passed over P. D.’s head as of no especial interest, but Hilda’s eyes narrowed and she began to speculate upon the cause of his presence in their late enemy’s country. From day to day, Hilda had been hardening her heart more and more against him and she was ready to believe the worst. Hilda had her opinion of a man who pretended to be a cowpuncher, who wore a piece of jewellery dangling from a black fob at his waist. She despised the type of man, so she told herself, who carried a woman’s face in a locket. Only a “sissy” would do an asinine and slushy thing like that, and sissies were not popular in the ranching country. However, apparently unconscious of, or indifferent to, her glance of scorn at the despised locket, he continued daily to wear it, and quite often, right before her eyes, even lovingly and tenderly toyed with it.
“What were you doing in Germany?” queried Sandy, pop-eyed with interest.
Cheerio moved uneasily, thrust his hand through his hair, looked dashed and worried, and shook his head.
“When were you there?” persisted Sandy. “Was it when the war was on?”
“Y-y-y-yes, I believe it was,” admitted Cheerio, uncertainly.
“Believe it was!” said Hilda. “Don’t you know when you were there?”
“Well—” began Cheerio, miserably, “you see——”
He was interrupted by P. D., whose exasperated glare turned from his son to his daughter.
“Is this a game of chess, or a quiz concerning international questions touching upon the infernal recent war?”
“Chess, by all means, sir.” Thus Cheerio, placatingly, and with evident relief at the change of subject. To Sandy, he promised:
“Tell you all about Germany some day, old man, wh-wh-when I’m f-ff-feeling a b-bit more f-fit to tackle the s-ssubject.” To P. D. persuasively:
“How about it, governor? It’s quite fair under the circumstances that I should yield you something. What do you say to a Castle? One will do me first-rate.”
“Sir, when I want quarter, I’ll ask for it. I’ll have you know that I have never yet taken a dashed flippity handicap and when the time comes for me to do that, by Gad! I’ll cease to play. I play, sir, chess, and I want no damned favouritism. I’ll be placed under no G—D—oblig—D—igation to any man.”
“Righto! Your move, sir.”
P. D. was indeed off his game. He was, moreover, the victim of a creeping panic. He made longer pauses, debated a move for a solid hour, in the meanwhile moving (in his head) every single man upon the board; imagine their effect in such and such a position, then presupposing a move which his opponent never intended to make, with a crafty quiver of a bushy eyebrow old P. D. would move to the attack, when the position of his King called for defense.
Once Cheerio made an obviously bad and wild move. This was when looking up unexpectedly he had found Hilda regarding him, not with her usual expression of hate and scorn, but with her dark eyes brimming with something that brought a strange tug to his heart and dimmed his own eyesight.
At that bad move, P. D.’s amazed eyes shot up above his glasses and he coughed angrily. If his opponent were attempting to curry favour with him by playing badly, he would receive no thanks. P. D. removed Cheerio’s valuable Bishop which had been sacrificed by his absent move, and snarled across the board:
“Damned curious move, sir. You wish to stop for to-night?”
“M-m-m-ore c-c-areful next time,” murmured Cheerio, stiffened by the fact that Hilda had blinked the brightness out of her eyes, and her chin was at a most disdainful angle. More careful he was; wary, keen and cunning. Before the clock pointed to nine o’clock, Cheerio murmured his firm, if slightly regretful:
“Check! Game!”
P. D. studied the board, his eyebrows twitching. His King was enclosed on all sides. Not even a chance for stalemate. This, though Cheerio had sacrificed his Bishop. P. D. blinked behind his glasses, cleared his throat noisily and grunted:
“Four games for you, sir.” After another noisy clearing of throat:
“Tides turn, sir. Tides turn. He ‘laughs best who laughs last.’”
“Oh, rather,” agreed Cheerio eagerly.
Undemonstrative Hilda came behind her father, solicitous and sweet, hovered above him a moment, sat on the arm of his chair, put her arm about his shoulders, cuddled her warm cheek lovingly against the top of his grey head. P. D. jerked up, shaking the embracing arms irritably from his shoulders.
“Well, well, what’s this? What’s this? Stop pawing me,” he objected. “What in the name of Holy Christmas are you whimpering about? I don’t like it. Women’s tears are a scientific evidence of a weak intellect. Stop sniffling, I say! Stop leaking on my neck! Damn dash it all! Get away! Get away!”
Hilda’s rare tears, dropping like pearls down her russet cheeks, described as leaks! In the presence of that man, stooping above the chess board the better to hide the amused grin that would show despite his best efforts, despite indeed the stony glare (if eyes moist with running-over tears could stonily glare) that Hilda favoured him with.
She had no soft thoughts for him now. If she could have forgotten his confession at the corrals, Hilda felt that she never, never could forgive his treatment of her father.
Just what Hilda would have desired him to do in the circumstances, cannot be said. She would have shared her father’s resentment had Cheerio purposely played a poor game, in order to give the older man an opportunity to win. Nevertheless she bitterly resented the fact that his victories were crushing the spirit of the old chess warrior. There had been some discussion—an idea, in fact, put out in the newspaper of that miserable reporter who was camped down by the river, on the edge of the O Bar O lands, that in the event of P. D.’s failure to beat the Englishman that the latter should take his place in Chicago, so that Canada’s chances of the world championship might be more likely assured.
That story, read by Hilda in the newspaper brought her from the camp by Sandy, and jealously hidden from her father, caused the girl’s heart to ache. She was intensely patriotic, was Hilda, and she desired, as any good Canadian would, to see the championship wrested from the U. S. A., but she loathed the thought of the wrester being Cheerio. She had fondly hoped to see her father in that desired role. Her heart coiled in tenderness about the crochetty, thorny old man, with his stumbling moves. She could not recall when her father had played so poorly or so uncertainly. He seemed to have lost all of his former skill. His confidence in himself as a chess player was completely gone. Anyone could have seen that after watching the old man play. Even the winning of one game might have a good effect and restore P. D.’s former confidence and craft. It was the daily absorption in the game, and the constant losing which was having its bad psychological effect upon him. Hilda knew that if P. D. failed to keep that Chicago engagement, he would suffer the bitterest disappointment of his life. She feared, indeed, it would seriously affect his health. He would lose his interest in chess forever, and for P. D. to lose interest in chess was tantamount to losing interest in life itself.