“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.