There was a long silence. Another move and a longer pause. P. D.’s trembling old hand poised above a Knight. Pause. A pawn slipped to the left of the Knight. The Knight half raised—no place to go—sacrificed. Out came the Queen. A pause. The Englishman’s Bishop swept clear across the board and took up a cocky position directly in the path of P. D.’s King. He moved to take the Bishop, saw the Castle in line, retreated, and found himself facing Cheerio’s Queen. Another move, and the Knight had him. A very long pause. A search for a place to go. P. D.’s dulled eyes gazed through their specs at Cheerio, and the latter murmured politely:
“Check to your king, sir. Game.”
The dazed P. D. stared in stunned silence at the board, forefinger and thumb pinching his underlip.
“Holy Salmon!” burst from Sandy. A sob of wrath came from the big chair where sat the daughter of the former chess champion.
“Awfully sorry, governor,” said Cheerio, gently.
P. D. reached across a shaking old hand.
“I congratulate you, sir,” said the defeated one. “You play a damned good game.”
For the first time in his chess life, P. D. McPherson had been soundly licked.
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.