He thought a moment, and then added brightly:
“Tomorrow morning. Put you up for tonight, and we’ll leave first thing. You see, I’ve one more game still to do.”
XXVI
P. D. was taking his “catnap” that evening in his “office,” a room that opened off from the dining-room, where the old rancher kept his account books and other papers connected with the running of his business. He was enjoying a sweet sleep, in which he dreamed of three white pawns checking a black King. The three pawns were his. The King was Cheerio’s. Something unpleasant and having nothing to do with the soothing picture he was enjoying, awoke him. He blinked fiercely, cleared his throat, sat up in the big chair, and glared disapprovingly at his daughter who had precipitated herself almost into his lap.
“What is the meaning of this? Is it, then, 8:30?”
“No, Dad. You’ve quarter of an hour still.”
“Then what in thunderation do you mean by waking me for, then? Get away! Get away! I don’t like to be pawed over in this manner.”
“Dad, I want to talk to you about something. I—I must talk to you.”
“When you wish to talk to me, you will choose an hour when I have the leisure to hear you.”
“Dad, you won’t let me speak to you through the day. You always say you’re calculating something, and now you simply must listen to me. It’s vitally important that you should. You must!”
“Must, heh?”
“Please, Dad!”
“Well, well, what is it? Speak up. Speak up.”
He took his watch out, glanced at it, scowled, paid no attention to what his daughter was saying until the word “chess” escaped her, when his glance fixed her.
“What’s that?”
“I said if you’d only defend your King instead of everlastingly attacking, don’t you see, you’d stand a better chance. I’ve noticed on two or three occasions that he’s left great openings where I’m sure you could—”
“Are you trying to teach your father the game of chess?”
“Oh, no, Dad, but you know, two heads are better than one. I’ve heard you say so.”
“Two mature heads—”
“Mine’s mature. I’m eighteen, and I think—”
“You’re not supposed to think. You’re not equipped for thinking. Women have a constitutional brain impediment that absolutely prevents them coherently or rationally—”
“Dad, look here. Don’t you know that it’s November 20th? The cattle are still on the range and everybody in the country is talking about us. They think we’ve gone plumb crazy. And why? Just because he wants to go on and on beating you and—”
“What’s this? What’s this? A discourse of depreciation of a prized employee of O Bar O?”
“Father!” Hilda seldom called her father “Father,” but she believed herself to be in a desperate situation and desperate speech and measures were necessary. “Father, you have simply got to beat him tonight. You—”
“You leave the room, miss.”
“Dad, I—”
“Leave the room!” roared P. D.
“Oh, if you only knew how unhappy I am,” cried Hilda piteously. Her father took her by the shoulders and turned her bodily out, closing the door sharply between them, and returning to pace the floor of his own office, and work off some of the upsetting influences which might not be well for that calmness and poise of mind necessary for a game of chess.
The ranch house was a great, unwieldy building, with a wide hall dividing on one side the enormous living-room and on the other the dining-room, beyond which was P. D.’s office and study.
Hilda shot out of her father’s office into the darkened dining-room, and from there into the lighted hall, where she collided with the entering Cheerio. On him, she turned the last vials of her wrath.
“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
