His hands swept his face as if by their motion he put away that scene that had come back so clearly to memory. No! Not even the girl he loved—for in his misery, Cheerio faced the fact that he loved Hilda—not even she could truthfully name him—coward!
XIII
Hard as it is to build up a reputation in a cattle country, which has its own standards of criticism as everywhere else in the world, it is not difficult to lose that reputation. From tongue to tongue rolled the story of Cheerio’s weakness and confession at the branding corral, and that story grew like a rolling snowball in the telling, so that presently it would appear that he had confessed not merely to the most arrant cowardice at the front, but gross treachery to his country and his king.
Every man at O Bar O was a war veteran. Few of them, it is true, had seen actual service at the front. Nevertheless, they had acquired the point of view of the man in the army who is quick to suspect and judge one he thinks has “funked.” The most jealous and hard in their judgment were they who were licked in by the long arm of conscription and who had “served” at the Canadian and English camps.
When Cheerio, clean and refreshed by a dip in the Ghost River, came in late to the cook-car and cast a friendly glance about him, not even Hootmon or Pink-Eyed Jake looked up from their “feeding.” An ominous silence greeted him, and the tongues that were buzzing so loudly prior to his entrance were stuck into cheeks, while meaning glances and winks went along the benches, as his grey eyes swept the circle of faces.
“Cheerio! Fellows!” said Cheerio gently, and fell to upon his dinner.
Chum Lee slapped down the soup none too gently into his bowl and as he did so, the Chinaman said:
“Sloup velly good for men got cold fleet! Eat him quick!”
Bully Bill, his ear inclined to the moving mouth of Holy Smoke, arose solemnly in his place at the head of the long table, slouched down the line of men, came to where Cheerio was beginning on that hot soup that was good for “cold fleet,” and:
“Hi you!” he growled, “pack down your grub P.D.Q. Then git to hello to the bunkhouse. Git your traps together. Report at the house for your pay. You’re fired!”
XIV
At the ranch house, P. D. McPherson alternately paced the living-room, the hall, the dining-room, the kitchen and the back and front verandahs.
Fourteen times he called for his daughter and twice fourteen times he had roared for his son.
The morning’s mail (brought on horseback seven miles from Morley post-office by an Indian) contained a letter that P. D. had been waiting for all of that summer. It was brief and to the point almost of curtness. It consisted of one line scrawl of a certain famous chess player in the City of Chicago and was to the effect that the writer would be pleased to accept the challenge of the Canadian player for November 30th of the current year.
If P. D. had drunk deeply and long of some inebriating cup he could not have felt any more exhilarated than after reading that epistle.
On November thirtieth—scarce two months off—he, P. D. McPherson, chess champion of Western Canada, was to go to the City of Chicago, in the State of Illinois, there to sit opposite the greatest chess player in the United States of America and at that time demonstrate to a skeptical world that Canada existed upon the map.
He’d show ’em, by Gad! Yanks! (The average Canadian refers to the average American as “Yank” or “Yankee” regardless of the part of the States of which he may be a resident. P. D. knew better than to refer to a Chicagoan as a Yank, but had acquired the habit, and in his heart he was not fussy over designations.)
Yanks! Hmph! P. D. snorted and laughed, and G.D.’ed the race heartily and without stint. Not that he had any special animus against Americans. That was just P. D.’s way of expressing himself. Besides he was still smarting over having been ignored and snubbed for long by those top-lofty, self-satisfied, condescending lords of the chess board. For two years P. D. had banged at the chess door and only now had he at last been reluctantly recognised. He’d show ’em a thing or two in chess.
Yanks as chess players! It was to laugh! P. D. had followed every printed game that had been published in the chess departments of the newspapers and periodicals. His fingers had fairly itched many a time when a game was in progress to indite fiery instructions to the d-d-d-d-d-d-d-fool players, who were alternately attacking and retreating at times when a trick could be turned that would end hostilities at a single move. P. D. knew the trick. It was all his own. He had invented it; at least, he thought he had invented it, and had been angry and uneasy at a suggestion put out by a recent player that it was a typically German move.
Two months! Two months in which to practice up and study for the mighty
