Conal himself, on the road, met Davey behind Maitland's slowly moving,
scraggy, high-ribbed cattle.
"What's the meaning of this?" he asked, striding into Farrel's kitchen.
"That kid of Cameron's--"
"Wanted a job," the Schoolmaster said. "He's quarrelled with his
father."
"Does he know the game?"
The Schoolmaster nodded, staring over his pipe into the fire.
Conal threw off his hat. His eyes were blazing. The breath throbbed
against the bare throat down which his beard climbed.
"Do you mean to say, you--"
The Schoolmaster's eye on his, halted his tongue.
"No. I don't mean to," he said slowly. He knocked the ash from his pipe.
"By the way, Conal, who fixed the brands on that red bull? You know the
beast I mean--small, square, blazed-face, sold in Port Southern last
sales."
"I did."
Fighting Conal threw himself into a chair.
"Badly done," the Schoolmaster murmured, gazing before him. "He, Young
Davey, twigged it. He's been holding his tongue--for what reason I don't
know--but he told me because he wanted this job. I gave it to him.
Thad's got his knife into him."
"Then why on earth did you want to take him on and get Thad on our
tracks?"
"Don't take orders from Thad yet, do you, Conal?"
Conal fidgeted under that glint in Dan's eye.
"No," he growled, "you know I don't, but there's no good I can see in
running against him. What does this kid want anyhow? Why, there's more
than a dozen of Cameron's cows in the mob I'm after now."
The log that had been smouldering all day on the open hearth broke and
fell with a shattering of embers.
"Tell you the truth, Conal," the Schoolmaster looked straight out before
him. "There's something in McNab's eyes tells me he's got his
suspicions--well, if he has--it's time to get out. You've had luck so
far. But there's something about McNab keeps making me feel as if he
were promising himself something on my account, saying to himself:
'There's something coming to you!' Of course he thinks I'm in this
business with you."
Conal shifted his position and swore impatiently.
"I'd better keep out of your way--that's what it amounts to, Dan!"
"No," the Schoolmaster said, "not that! Let McNab think what he likes as
far as I'm concerned. Only he hasn't any particular quarrel with you,
Conal, and he has with me--and if he tripped you up trying to get at me
it would be a bad business."
Conal leant forward.
"Things are tightening up north, too?" he said, "I mean to quit, Dan.
Maitland knows I do his business--and a little bit extra on my own
account. That doesn't worry him so long as he gets a fancy price for the
beasts. I want to pull off this last 'lift' and then turn the game down
altogether. I wish you were in this with me though you've never been in
any but square jobs before. I've been spying out the land--took a short
cut from Rane and got into the back hills. Sent Tim and Pat on with
those scrags of Maitland's! Picked up Teddy at Steve's. There's not much
he doesn't know about the ways of scrub cattle. Trust a black! He took
me down Narrow Valley to the plains. We laid a couple of hours under
cover in the dark. Then the moon rose, and you should've seen the mob go
stringin' out across the plains--lookin' no more than a drove of rats in
the dim light. It's a pretty good bunch, rollin' fat--and prices high. I
mean to pick it up. Wouldn't 've known anything about it but for
you--it's out of my beat. You ought to have a whack of the profits,
Dan."
Both men were silent for a few moments. Only the fire creaked in the
quiet room.
"When I'm through with this bit of work, I'll get out and set up on the
respectable somewhere. We could take up a couple of hundred acres on our
own account, you and me," Conal murmured; "go to church, wear
long-tailed coats, ring-on some fancy speechifyin'. Me 'n Deirdre'd sing
in the choir. When this is all through, there's something I'll want to
be saying to you, Dan."
There was another moment's dreaming silence. The Schoolmaster spoke with
a sudden resolution.
"No," he said. "Do what you like yourself, Conal, but I made up my mind
long ago not to have anything to do with 'cross' jobs. I'm not in this.
I don't want to be--and I'll have nothing to do with the proceeds."
"You call, Dan!" Conal rose from his seat by the fire with a gesture of
disappointment. "It'll be full moon to-morrow night and I'm goin' to
make a dash for 'm. Teddy and I ran up a yard near the old hut in Narrow
Valley. That's what's been keeping me. Steve's goin' to send tucker and
fire-irons down to-day."
"What about young Cameron?" the Schoolmaster asked.
"We'll have to keep an eye on him. You don't suppose he'll blab, do you?
You say he knows the game already and hasn't. But we can't afford to
take chances."
"But he's not to be dragged in, Conal!"
Conal threw back his head, laughing.
"Well, I want another man," he said. "As for being dragged in, he won't
be dragged in. But did you ever hear of a youngster who'd sit behind the
door and suck his thumbs while there was moonlighting in the air? It
won't be a case of draggin' him in, but keepin' him out. After all, it's
the sport makes it worth while--the waiting, rush, fight and carryin'
through of things."
He stretched his long limbs.
"But I won't have Davey 'working' with you, Conal," the Schoolmaster
said angrily.
Deirdre came into the room, a little bonnet over her head and a long
black cloak covering her. There was a wild colour the wind had whipped
into them in her cheeks and her eyes were shining.
"You, Conal!" she cried eagerly when she saw the tall figure of the
drover. "When did you get back?"
Conal saw only her shining eyes and the fluttering line of her mouth. He
stood stock-still staring at her. It did not occur to his simple mind to
ask whether it was for him her eyes were shining. Only that glad and
eager note in her voice pleased him.
The Schoolmaster had heard people say that Deirdre was beautiful; but
she had never seemed more beautiful than she was this evening, when she
came out of the gloom, bringing into the quiet room and across the
threshold of his troubled thoughts, her youth and buoyancy of spirit,
the whole secret and subtle essence of her femininity in bloom.
"Oh I--I've just got back and came to see your father at once, Deirdre,"
was all Conal could say.
"Did you have a good trip?" she asked, taking off her hat and coat.
He wondered how much of his enterprise she knew. But there was no shadow
on her face.
"Yes, all right," he said, a little awkwardly.
"I saw Mrs. Cameron at the store, father," she continued, busy with her
own thoughts, and turning over in her mind what Mrs. Cameron had said to
her, what she had said to Mrs. Cameron, and the plot, light as a
spider's web, that they had woven between them for Davey's benefit.
"And as I was coming along home," she laughed blithely, "who did I meet
on the road but Pat Glynn! And he put this little parcel into my hand,
and said that he had been told to give it to me. He made me promise not
to open it until I got in, too!"
She tore the wrappings of brown paper and newspaper from a little brown
box, opened it and drew out a heavy, old-fashioned necklace made of
links and twists of gold, with a locket set with rubies and pearls at
the end of it.
"Oh, isn't it pretty!" she cried.
The Schoolmaster stared at it, and on Conal's face a thunder-cloud of
resentment gathered.
"Who did he tell you sent it?" the Schoolmaster asked.
"He wouldn't say--only that it was from a 'devoted admirer.'"
"Have you any idea who it's from?" Dan asked, anger and anxiety
struggling within him.
Deirdre looked up at Conal.
"It's not from you, Conal?" she asked, hesitatingly.
He shook his head.
"Perhaps it was Davey?"
She looked at the Schoolmaster.
"No," he said, "Davey had no money, I know, so he couldn't have sent it.
You've no idea of any one else?"
"No." The light had gone from her face.
Conal seized his hat. His mouth set in an ugly line.
"I'll go and see Pat," he said.
The door slammed behind him.
Deirdre stood looking down on the glimmering thing in her hand.
"You're not to wear it, Deirdre," the Schoolmaster said harshly. Her
eyes flew to his. He caught a reflection of his own spirit in them.
"Do you think I'd be likely to," she said.
It was hours later when Conal slammed the door of the cottage again. The
suppressed rage in him burned to white ash.
"He's gone--Pat Glynn!" he said angrily. "I've ransacked the place for
him. He's melted into thin air. I've been out along the Rane road and
half way into the Port; but he's done the disappearing trick. There's
not a track of him anywhere."