"Take ye up on that, an' if you lose I'll make you walk home and get one. They never have 'em here at night. What say, young feller, will ye give this feller a trimming for me?"
"Why, yes, I would like to play a game," said Phil. He wanted to play for two reasons. First, it would give him a legitimate excuse for loitering there a little longer without attracting attention, and secondly, he really enjoyed a good game of checkers.
Phil disposed of his man very easily, for he was a remarkably good player. At the conclusion of the game, the defeated man demanded that his friend try a game with Phil, and accordingly changed places with him. Here was a harder opponent, and Phil was devoting his entire attention to giving him a run for the honors of the game, when the door opened and a couple of men slouched in.
Phil's heart stood still, for they were two of the trio of tramps they had caught in their shack outside their home town. Phil was in a quandary. He couldn't leave the game and rush out of the restaurant without doing the very thing he least wanted to, that was draw particular attention to himself.
There was only one thing to do, and that was stay and face the music. He doubted if the tramps would start anything in the room, but would probably wait outside and seek to wreak revenge on him for being one of those instrumental in their capture that time in the shack.
Then to his great surprise, they passed by him, giving him only a casual glance, but no sign of recognition.
Phil breathed a sigh of relief, and then reflected that it was not strange that they failed to recognize him. In the first place, they would hardly expect to find him in that northern town, and then his khaki clothes were of the sort that is common to the woods, but not to the town where their arrest had taken place. So it was a simple matter, their not knowing him.
He turned his attention to the game again, and had made two moves, when a phrase, spoken in French by a man at the table in back of him, startled him into alert attention.
The man had said:
"Well, Pierre, 'The Bear' will be here in a few moments now."