In the hurry and rush of events of this especial day, Viper was forgotten, and the excited Sandy had omitted to lock him up in the barn, as was his custom, when he went to the house.
So far as P. D. was concerned, Viper was a dead dog. Very much alive in fact, however, was Sandy’s dog, as curled up on that couch of luxury he bit and snapped at elusive fleas that are no respectors of places and things and thrive on a dog’s back whether he be lying upon a bed of straw or sand or, as in the present instance, curled up on an overstuffed sofa.
Meanwhile, as Sandy made his unwilling moves, and while Viper disappeared into the land of oblivion through the medium of dog sleep, a whispered council of war was held on the front verandah.
“Go in and speak to him now. The game may run on till midnight. You know Dad! If, by any chance, Sandy puts up a good fight and prolongs the game, he’ll have it to do all over again and again until Dad beats him hard, and if Sandy plays a poor game, then he’ll be as sore no one’ll be able to go near him and he’ll make me take his place. So there you are. You may as well take the bull by the horns right now, and hop to it.”
The woman tempted and the man did fall.
The foreman of O Bar O, endeavouring to put firmness and resolution into his softened step, took his courage into his hands and entered the forbidden presence of the chess players. Hat in hand, nervously twisting it about, tobacco shifted respectfully into one cheek, this big, lanky gawk of a man cleared his throat apologetically. Only a slight twitch of one bushy eyebrow betrayed the fact of P. D.’s irritated knowledge of the presence of intruders.
“Dad!” Hilda’s voice trembled slightly. She appreciated the gravity of interrupting her father’s game, but Hilda was in that exalted mood of the hero who sacrifices his own upon the altar of necessity and duty. What had occurred at the corrals was a climax to her own judgment and condemnation of the prisoner before the bar.
P. D. affected not to hear that “Dad!” On the contrary, he elaborately raised his hand, paused it over a knight, lifted the knight and set it from a black to a red square. Dangerous and violent consequences, Hilda knew, were more than likely to follow should she persist. A matter of life and death concerned not the chess monomaniac when a game was in progress. Not till the old gambler could shout the final:
“Check to your king, sir! Game!” should man, woman, child, or dog dare to address the players.
“Dad!”
P. D.’s hand, which had just left the aforementioned Knight, made a curious motion. It closed up into a fist that shot into the palm of his left hand. Up flashed bright old eyes, glaring fiercely through double-lensed glasses. Up lifted the shaggy old head, jerked amazedly from one to the other of the discomfited pair before him.
“What’s this? What’s this? Business hours changed, heh? Who the—”
Bully Bill cleared his throat elaborately and lustered a clumsy step forward.
“Just come over to the house to tell you I’ve fired his royal nibs, sir, and he’ll be over for his pay.”
“You’ve what?”
“Fired—”
Half arising from his feet, P. D. emitted a long, bloodcurdling, blistering string of original curses that caused even his hardened foreman to blench. That raised voice, those unmistakable words of wrath penetrated across the room and into the cocked ear of Sandy’s sleeping dog. Full and exciting as the owner of Viper made all of his days, the exhausted animal never failed, when opportunity offered, to secure such rest as fate might allow him from the wild career through which his master daily whirled him. Nevertheless that raised and testy voice, for all Viper knew, might be directed against the one he loved best on earth.
Viper turned a moist nose mournfully to the ceiling, and ere the last of the scorching words of P. D. McPherson had left his lips, a low moan of exquisite sympathy and pain came from the direction of the overstuffed couch. Instantly the red, alarmed flush of guilt and terror flooded the freckled face of the owner of the dog, as wriggling around to escape that raised hand of his furious parent, Sandy added chaos to confusion by upsetting the sacred chess board.
There was a roar from the outraged chess player, a whining protest from the boy, ducking out of his way, and at that critical moment, Viper sprang to the defence of his master. Planting himself before P. D. McPherson, the little dog barked furiously and menacingly, and then fled before the foot kicked out for dire punishment. Pandemonium broke loose in that lately quiet room, dedicated to the scientific, silent game of chess.
“Who let that dog in?” roared the enraged ranchman.
“He come in himself,” averred Sandy, quailing and trembling before his father’s terrible glance, and casting a swift, furtive look about him for an easy means of exit.
“Get him out! Get him out! Get him out!” shouted P. D., and, seizing a golf club, he jabbed at the swiftly disappearing animal. For awhile, dog and boy cavorted through the room, the one racing to safe places under sofas and behind chairs and piano, and the other coaxing, pleading, threatening, till at last, crawling cravenly along the floor on his stomach, Viper gave himself up to justice.
“Hand him over to me,” demanded P. D.
“Wh-what’re you goin’ to do to him?” quavered the boy, an eye on the niblick in P. D.’s hand, and holding his treasured possession protectingly to his ragged breast.
“Never mind what I’m going to do. You hand that dog to me, do you hear
