The Pioneers

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

  CHAPTER XXXI

  In the yard Conal told the Schoolmaster of McNab's arrival.

  "Settles us," Farrel said shortly. "That's what he came to do. And wecan't afford to let him think there's anything on. He's given hissuspicions to M'Laughlin most likely and the delay to-night'll give themtime to get the word out about us along the road. So all we can do islie low, play civil to McNab, let him think he's on the wrong track.Then when this blows over--in a couple of months, perhaps--"

  Conal swore bitterly.

  "I could have wrung his neck when I saw him. It was all I could do tokeep me hands off him," he said.

  "Don't be giving the game away, Conal," the Schoolmaster cautioned."Mind, we're not taking chances."

  "It'll be a couple of hours to moonrise after dark," Conal saidrestively, glancing at the waning sky. "If you could keep him busy,playing cards and drinking--let him think we weren't upset at seeing himand he Seems to be settlin' down and looking foolish findin' we're allabout--I might walk out after a bit. I could get the beasts, with Daveyand that blithering half-breed. Sally's easily worth a couple of menwith cattle."

  "Do you think I'm likely to be able to keep McNab so busy, he wouldn'tnotice you were walking out?" the Schoolmaster asked, impatiently. "Youand Davey had better come in and hang round loose presently."

  He went towards the house.

  His greeting of McNab was as lukewarm, negligent and friendly as italways was. Deirdre saw no flicker of anxiety in his face. McNab's eyeswere quick and keen on it for the first few minutes, but finding notrace of repressed excitement, not a spark of the impatience heexpected, but only a whimsical smile to convey that the Schoolmasterknew why he had come, and was amused at the reason, he dropped into thechair he had taken and sought to cover the unexpectedness of his visitby unusual affability.

  He was sitting in Steve's chair by the fire when Farrel came into theroom that was kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and living-room ingeneral at Steve's. Deirdre slipped out with a jug for water as theSchoolmaster came in. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her talking toConal in the yard.

  When she returned, her laughter and gaiety surprised him. She set a jugof grog between Steve and McNab on the table near NcNab's elbow. TheSchoolmaster swore beneath his breath when he saw McNab's eyes on her.

  He trembled with rage when he heard Deirdre talking to McNab; but hereyes met his reassuringly. He caught their message, calm and purposeful.He knew that she was playing the woman to McNab, and why. The knowledgeangered and humiliated him.

  Davey and Conal came into the long, barely-lighted room. They threwthemselves on a bench near the door. Conal, taking a pipe from his belt,smoked morosely. Davey did not look at McNab, and McNab took no noticeof him, enjoying his position of importance by the fireside, andchuckling over the gay chatter Deirdre threw to him.

  "We eat our heads off, up here, Mr. McNab," she said. "And sleep! Daveyand Conal there, to see them yawning over their supper to-night you'dthink they'd never seen a bed for weeks. They've been saying they'regoing to turn in early because they've to go off mustering first thingin the morning, and father and Steve would have sat here dozing by thefire for a while, and then gone off to bed too. I was thinking I wouldhave to take out my sewing and talk to the cat ... till it was a decenthour to be saying my prayers. But now p'raps you'll have a game of cardswith me, though I don't suppose Conal and Davey'll go to bed early now,seeing we've got company."

  Davey sat bolt upright against the wall. It froze the blood in his veinsto hear her on such terms of easy familiarity with McNab. Conal shifteduneasily.

  "But we can get along without them, can't we?" Deirdre asked blithely."There's no need for them to be sitting up trying to be polite, isthere?"

  "None at all."

  McNab chuckled. He thought he was getting on very well with Deirdre andthat she was playing him off against Conal and Davey in a spirit ofpique.

  "Right. Good-night, McNab, see you in the morning," Conal said angrily.He swung out of the room. Davey followed him.

  "And now for the business that brought you, McNab. Mighty kind of you tohave come after me with it?"

  The Schoolmaster sat down before Thad McNab, facing him squarely, hisone eye played on McNab's shifty face. There was just the faintestironical emphasis in his voice.

  McNab stirred uneasily.

  "Fact is," he began, his eyes shifted under the Schoolmaster's gaze."Fact is--we're wanting a school in the Wirree," he plunged desperately."Before you go away I thought--I thought, not knowing exactly what yourplans were, I'd have a talk to you about it. The place is gettin' a badname with the children growing up not able to make more than a mark fortheir names. In the hills, of course, you taught the first generation,as you might say, so the older ones can teach the others coming on, butdown there it's different. We've never had any school or schoolteachers. The people can't pay enough--just a few of them--to make itworth your while ... but if we built a school, got 'em all together ...it might be a good thing, I'd maybe put up the money for theschool--maybe--"

  He fidgeted in his seat. He did not want to commit himself too far, andyet he was irritably conscious of the weakness of his explanation unlesshe did. He had a suspicion than Dan Farrel was laughing at him up hissleeve too. An ill-humour was rising in him.

  There was an ominous silence--a moment of suspicion and suspense. A wordfrom either might have been a spark to the long-hidden train of enmitybetween them. Deirdre broke the silence. She threw down a pack of cardsand pulled her chair up to the table.

  "All that'll keep till to-morrow, Mr. McNab, won't it?" she asked. "Havea game of euchre with Steve and me, now. Let's play cut-throat--it'smore exciting. Father can think over what you've said and tell you inthe morning."

  "Yes ... yes ... you think it over, Farrel," McNab said eagerly.

  He was glad enough to shelve discussion of this urgent matter which hadbrought him from the Wirree to talk to the Schoolmaster, seeing that itwas not at all urgent and did not look like it.

  Deirdre pushed the bottle of rum between him and Steve. She sat oppositeto them, the broad yellow glare of the dip on her face.

  The liquor was already beginning to warm McNab's brain. His head wassteady enough on his shoulders; but there was a glow within him. Hewatched the face of the girl before him as in a dream.

  Farrel saw the arabesques of red and blue the cards made under the lightas she threw them on the table. He heard her gleeful and triumphantexclamations. He realised what she was doing for him, was sore andangry, but there was nothing to do but to play up to her. He sat at thefar end of the table just out of the light: after a while his headdrooped.

  Deirdre's laughter flashed.

  "Look at father," she cried, "he's dead with sleep!"

  Farrel started and stared at her, sleepily.

  "It's no good your blinking like an owl and pretending you weren'ttaking forty winks. You'd better go to bed and have done with it," shesaid.

  He struggled to his feet.

  "I'm dog-weary," he muttered. "Think I will."

  "Good-night," he added after a moment. "And be sure you see the firesare out before you turn in, Deirdre. You're not to be staying up late,either! I won't have her getting too fond of the cards, Steve."

  He stumbled across the room to the far end where a screen of brushwoodand bagging against the back of the shanty made another small room.

  Deirdre laughed again.

  "I'm winning all the time," she said gaily, "so they won't want to playlong."

  The cards went backwards and forwards across the table to the tune ofher exclamations and the chime of her laughter, the muttered oaths andexclamations of Steve and McNab. Steve was soggy with drink; but McNabwas not as drunk as he seemed. His eyes caught hers with a curiousexpression when the Schoolmaster had gone from the room.

  "And who's the man Conal's going to kill for comin' between you,Deirdre?" he asked.

  "How do I know?" she said, a little nervously.

 
"P'raps it's the man sent you the gold chain," McNab murmured. His eyesglimmered at her out of the darkness. "They tell me Conal went roundlike a madman looking for Pat Glynn to tell him who it was, threateningto break the last bone in Pat's body if he wouldn't speak."

  "Yes, I think it was him," Deirdre said, meeting his eyes. "Conal saidif ever he found him, he'd--"

  "Conal's a hot head doesn't mean half he says," McNab muttered.

  "But he means that, I'm sure," Deirdre said. "And Conal's so strong.Look at his hands. He could put them round a man's throat and wring thelife out of it--just as easily as you wring a bird's neck, Mr. McNab.And he's a dead shot, too, Conal--they say."

  "Eh, then it's somebody's neck he'll be wringing, or somebody he'll beshooting, for sure," McNab said. "For it's not him you'll be marrin',and it's not him your heart's set on. It's the other."

  The quivering of her face, a dilating of the pupils of her eyes thatwere wells of darkness, told him that he had scored. He leant forward,following up his advantage, eagerly.

  "And it's not Conal, for all his blustering, I'm afraid of, my pretty,"he whispered. His eyes were narrowed, the smile in them leaping acrosshis face. "It's not Conal, for all his blustering, though I dursay y'think he'd kill me for love of you. And you'd break his heart for loveof somebody else--by way of reward. But it's me all the same that'll getyou."

  Deirdre pushed back her chair. Then she remembered the part she had beenplaying all the evening. She steadied herself, putting her hands on theedge of the table, and looked down into McNab's eyes, laughing.

  "Why," she cried, "you're as drunk as drunk, Mr. McNab! And so is Steve;you'd better see each other to bed. I'm going myself."

  She went across to the corner-room next the Schoolmaster's, where sheslept. When she had heard Steve shambling before NcNab to the room offthe bar where occasional visitors were put, she went back to thekitchen, raked over the embers of the fire, and put out a flare that wasburning low in its tin of rancid fat and belching forth streams of heavyblack smoke.

  She opened the door of the Schoolmaster's room. The bunk against thewall on which he slept was empty, the window open. She entered, closedthe door and sat down by the open window.

  The moonlight was waning. The silver light in which the forest had beenbathed an hour before, was dimmer, the shadows the house and sheds castblack against it. Where the light struck dead trees they stood outwraith-like from the dark wave of the forest.

  Listening intently, she heard the distant cracking of whips, the longlowing, belched and terrified cries of cattle.