Bully Bill, chewing, spitting, moving restlessly about, eager to be off, kept his own counsel so far as the murmuring crew were concerned; but a suggestive question however humorously or pacifically couched anent the matter of O Bar O round-up aroused his irritation and profanity to a hair-splitting degree. The harassed foreman was beside himself with anxiety and uncertainty. The sight of his men slouching about the corrals and the yards aroused both his wrath and his grief. He had worked his wits all through the month of October to find sufficient work to keep his men going, but the work created by the foreman was of a sort for which a rider feels only contempt. November the fifth, and riders—cowpunchers of the great O Bar O ranch hauling logs for fire wood or fence posts! Puttering with fencing, brush-cutting—Indians’ work, by Gad! Snugging up the bunkhouse and barn with dirt and manure for the winter! By Gravy! Those were jobs for tenderfeet and Indians. Not for self-respecting riders. No wonder the fellows were beginning to growl among themselves and cast black looks at the ranch house. Two of them had quit the service of the old ranch, two first-class men, at that, and Bully Bill noted them later upon the Banff Highway, riding with a hated rival outfit.
The O Bar O prided itself on maintaining a prize crew of men. They knew every inch of the range which extended over a hundred and fifty thousand acres into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They knew the brands of half the cattlemen in Alberta. They could pick out O Bar O stock even when the brand was overgrown. At this time of year, skilled labour of this sort were in great demand and could choose their own jobs and demand their own price. If P. D. failed to find them regular men’s jobs, his foreman knew that presently they would give ear to the solicitations of rival outfits.
“Whispering Jake,” owner of the Bar D Ranch in the Jackass Valley, kept his eye “peeled” always for O Bar O hands. Himself unable to keep his men for long, he was satisfied to engage men trained at O Bar O and discharged for one cause or another. “Whisper,” as he was more popularly known—the name having been given to him in derision, because he talked always at the top of his immense voice—had been over the last few weeks, supposedly to look for a roan heifer, which he declared had strayed on to O Bar O. Bully Bill knew very well that the cowman had come, in fact, to look the O Bar O men over and to drop a hint of the amount of advance he was willing to pay over what the men were getting from P. D. “Whisper” made a point of going up $20 a month over O Bar O wages; but he dropped his men as soon as the rush season was over and left them high and dry for the winter. On the other hand, P. D. did not raise his men’s wages in the busy seasons, but kept them on all winter, regardless of slack periods and the drop of price in cattle. At Christmas, moreover, if the stock were in healthy shape and the profit of the business warranted it, O Bar O men received an annual bonus.
This year “Whisper” had learned, through the medium of Holy Smoke, that during the period when the hands of O Bar O were idling about waiting for P. D. to give the order to set out upon the round-up, considerable of the men’s wages had disappeared in poker games played in the bunkhouse, and also at times in the newspaper man’s camp. The losers, needing immediate funds, wavered toward the promises of the other cattlemen, and especially toward “Whispering Jake.”
Chafe and fret and rage internally as Bully Bill might, no word came forth from the ranch house, where for more than a month the Chess Champion of Western Canada and the potential challenger of the world had been closeted each night with Cheerio. When the third man left the service of O Bar O, Bully Bill hearkened to the suggestion of his assistant and accompanied by him paid a visit to the ranch house, where he requested Chum Lee to ask Miss Hilda to come to the front door.
Hilda, in the living-room, intently watching every move upon the board, looked up surprised at the whispered message of the Chinaman. Glad to escape from what she clearly perceived was practically the end of another game, the girl joined the foreman and his assistant upon the verandah.
“Miss Hilda,” began Bully Bill, “Ho and I are here to-night to ask you what’re we goin’ to do about the cattle? We can’t afford to wait no longer.”
Hilda debated the matter, hand on chin. She was looking off quite absently and suddenly she said to Bully Bill:
“Look here, Bill, if Dad had only moved his Knight instead of his Castle, he could have checked his King from both ends of the board and the jig would have been up. But Dad’s losing his nerve. He’s been beat too often lately. I can just see him fairly breaking. It’s telling on him. He’s an old man, my Dad is, and it’s terrible at his age to lose confidence. So long as Dad knew he was the best player in the West, he was just as cocky and spunky as a two-year-old, but you ought to see him now. Bunched up in his chair, his old eyes dim, and the eyebrows sticking out and his lip bulged. You’d hardly know him. Oh! if he had only moved his Knight! I could just have slapped him when he lifted that darned Castle. I tell you, Bill, Dad has simply got to beat him. He’s got to win at least one game. He’d never survive a permanent defeat, and apart from Dad’s feelings, neither would I!”
“But, look-a-here, Miss Hilda, what’re we all agoin’ to do till then? We can’t allow them cattle to be out till end of November. Why, them cattle——”