The Pioneers

by Katharine Susannah Prichard

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  When the broad glare of the morning sun broke through the dingy windowsof the hut, Deirdre started from the cramped position in which she hadfallen, her head leaning wearily against a box.

  She was aghast to find that she had been asleep. As she woke with astartled exclamation, a hand went out to her. Her eyes met Davey's.

  It was as if that encounter in the valley of shadows had brushed allmisunderstandings from the love that was like the sun between them.Deirdre had wrestled with death for possession of him. Her eyes stillbore the shadow of the conflict. Davey was wan and vanquished. He knewthat she had wrested his spirit from the darkness on which it had beendrifting, and the knowledge made a serene joyousness in him.

  Speech deserted them; they had no voices to talk with. Just this gazingof eyes on eyes told all that there was to tell.

  Later on she went from his side and began to move about the hut,gathering the brushwood into the hearth, raking over the ashes andmaking the fire again. His eyes followed her.

  The hut was shabby and disorderly by daylight. Conal had used it when hewas mustering, and there was a heap of rusty irons in the corner, a fewhoarded tins and half-empty jars of grease on the shelves, some oldclothes, worn-out boots and green-hide thongs behind the door. The bunk,with its sheepskins, and a table made of a rough hewn plank on threepoles set in the floor, were the only furniture. Deirdre found a bundleof rags on the shelf near the hearth, and searched for the bottle ofliniment which she knew was kept for use if any of the men got a brokenhand or a kick from a beast in the stock-yards.

  Davey knew where Conal had stowed these things while they were workingthere together. He tried to help Deirdre to find them. She was at hisside in an instant.

  "You mustn't move," she said, a compelling tenderness in her voice.

  He fell back.

  The touch of her hands was a shock of joy. His face turned up to her,wan with weakness, radiant at her near presence. His eyes went throughhers.

  "Deirdre!"

  The cry was a prayer also.

  She bent over him; her arms encircled him. From that first kiss ofconscious lovers she withdrew a little tremulously.

  "Oh, you must be still," she cried. "If the bleeding begins again you'llnever be strong. You must lie quiet now, and I'll see if I can find somefood. There's sure to be flour and some oatmeal about."

  "On the shelf in the corner by the hearth," Davey said. "And there wastea in a tin there a day or two ago."

  She found them and they breakfasted on a weak gruel and tea withoutmilk. She had helped Davey on to the bunk against the wall and spreadthe sheepskins under him when the Schoolmaster and Teddy came into theyard. Farrel carried a bag of food and a couple of blankets strapped tohis saddle.

  Deirdre met him out of doors. The sight of her reassured him. She toldhim what had happened during the night--of Davey's long stillness andinsensibility, and of Conal's coming a few hours before the dawn.

  The Schoolmaster went into the hut.

  "Father says "--Deirdre went straight to Davey--"he doesn't believe itwas Conal fired that shot at you."

  Her eyes went out to him troubled and beseeching.

  "I can't help thinking it was, myself, though I'd be glad not to. He'sbeen such a big brotherly sort of man to me always, Conal, and it hurtsto think he could do a thing like that."

  She continued after a moment.

  "Father says, Conal came in after you'd gone last night. He'd beendrinking, but his voice told him that he didn't do it. As soon as heknew you'd come after me, the way you were, he rode out after you forfear you mightn't have been able to reach here. Do--do you think it wasConal, Davey?"

  Davey turned his face to the wall. He could not bear to hear her defenceof Conal--her solicitude and desire to think well of him in spite ofeverything. He had no doubt in his own mind. The memory of thatwhistling shot from the dark trees, the agony of his long ride throughthe hills, came back to him.

  "All I know," he said bitterly, "is that I was looking for him before Ileft the town to tell him what mother had told me about the raid McNaband the old man and M'Laughlin were getting up. At the Black Bull theysaid they'd been baiting Conal--about me--and he'd gone out looking forme--promising to do for me. Some one said he'd gone to the store. I wentthere and Joe Wilson told me he'd seen Conal riding out an hour earlier.I thought I'd catch him up on the road. It was from the trees by thecreek the shot came, and Red took fright."

  "There's nobody else got a grudge against you, Davey?"

  "Not that I know who'd want to settle me that way. McNab, of course,hasn't got any love for me."

  "You went up to the store and straight out along the road past theBull?" the Schoolmaster asked.

  "Yes, but I'd seen McNab in the bar a couple of minutes before. Itcouldn't have been him."

  Farrel threw out his hand with a gesture of doubt and disappointment.

  "Deirdre says she's heard Conal say that he'd do for you, Davey," hesaid, "but she didn't think he meant it. Just his hot-headed way oftalking! McNab must have maddened him, filled him up with drink. I can'ttell you how it goes against the grain to believe he could have done athing like this, and yet--it looks like it."

  "Was he back when you came away this morning?" Deirdre asked.

  "No," the Schoolmaster replied.

  "Ask him when he comes in, whether he did, or did not fire at Davey,"she said. "I'll take his word. Will you, Davey?"

  "Yes." Davey's tone was a little uncertain.

  The Schoolmaster went to the door again.

  Davey called him back with a restless movement.

  "What are you going to do about those beasts?" he asked querulously."They're better here than at Steve's, but of course if M'Laughlin gets atracker it wouldn't take him long to find them. Teddy's got them in thefour-mile paddock this morning, but they ought to be moving."

  "Perhaps Conal"--the Schoolmaster began.

  "Oh, yes, I forgot, Conal--he'll take them."

  Davey fell back.

  "Why can't you take them yourself?" he inquired.

  The Schoolmaster met his eyes for a moment.

  "Lost my nerve," he said, with a little grating laugh, and turned out ofdoors.

  Deirdre's eyes sparkled with anger.

  "Oh," she gasped, breathlessly, "how dare you, Davey? How dare you?"

  Davey, morose anger in his eyes, stared at her.

  "You're angry because he let me go out last night," she said. "Don't youknow he's almost helpless, that he can just see dimly in the broaddaylight. All the world's going dark to him, and it's breaking hisheart--eating the strength and the soul and the courage out of him, tostand by and let others do things for him."

  Consciousness of what he had done came slowly to Davey.

  "Oh, it was mean and cruel and cowardly to hurt him like that!" Deirdrecried passionately, and ran out into the sunshine after her father.

  When she came back into the hut Davey, with a tense white face, wasstanding near the door.

  "I ought to be flayed alive--but I didn't know, I didn't understand," hesaid.

  There was no quieting or comforting him.

  "Will he ever forgive me? Do you think he will, Deirdre?" His face wasclammy with the sweat of weakness. "It was more than Conal did--that.Conal wouldn't have done it."

  Deirdre went for the Schoolmaster. He came into the hut again. He andDavey gripped hands. Then the Schoolmaster led him to the bunk again andstretched him out on it.

  "It's all right, my boy! All right!" he said, brokenly. "You lie stillnow and let Deirdre look after you."

  Davey's vigorous youth rebelled at the days of idleness which followed.The wound knitted quickly; his weakness vanished as it mended.

  Conal had disappeared. No one had seen or heard of him since the nightof the Wirree races. The Schoolmaster and Deirdre had accepted hisdisappearance as silent proof of his having fired the shot that hadalmost cost Davey his life.

  When they went back to the
shanty Steve talked incessantly about Conal.Although no more had been heard of M'Laughlin and the threatened raidhad never been made, he was not easy about that half hundred head ofnewly-branded beasts in the Narrow Valley paddock.

  At the end of the week Davey took the bit between his teeth.

  "I'm going to take that mob to the Melbourne yards," he said. "We can'trun them any longer in the Valley."

  "It's too risky, Davey," the Schoolmaster said. "McNab's too quiet to beharmless, and there's only one man could run the mob with safety."

  "And that's Conal?" Davey asked.

  "There's not a man in the country like Conal with cattle. He knows everyby-path and siding on the ranges. Then he's hail-fellow-well-met withthe men on the roads. There's not one of them would give him away," theSchoolmaster said.

  "I could run them." The line on Davey's mouth tightened. "And safer thanConal, I've been thinking. Some of the cows have father's brand on them.Most of the calves ought to have the D.C. by rights, I suppose. They'vegot the cut of our Ayrshires, though Conal's done the double M's prettyneatly on them.

  "What's the old man's will be mine some day, and so they're in a sort ofway my cattle too. I can say, I don't think Ayrmuir had any right--notmuch anyway--to them, if we couldn't get them. The old man wouldn't riska couple of horses on the off-chance. Rosses and Morrisons lost threehorses when they had a go for 'em, besides there isn't a man on ourplace could have yarded them. Conal got them. We were with him. You canhold his share for this batch when I bring it to you. But I'm going todrive, saying they are Donald Cameron's cattle. So they are, most ofthem. I'll be driving my own cattle as a matter of fact, though it maybe realising on the estate, a forced loan from the old man, you may say.My name will carry me through and when the deal's over I can make itright with father. I'm going home."

  "Can't think what Conal means, leavin' 'em so long," Steve mutteredirritably.

  "We can't have them on our hands any longer!"

  Davey's voice was short and irritable too.

  "You're right, Davey." The Schoolmaster spoke slowly, thoughtfully."What you say makes the getting rid of them sound easy, but I hardlylike the idea of--"

  "Taking your share, after the way I've put it?" Davey interrupted. "Butas far as I'm concerned they're Conal's beasts, and your's--andmine--because we got them. Nobody else could, and they weren't any goodto anybody eating their heads off in the hills. But for all the worldit's as if I had contracted with you to do it on behalf of the estate.Ayrmuir gets a third of the profits. I'll hand it over to the oldman--and as likely as not he'll be glad enough to see it, for a coupleof dozen breakaways and scrubbers he never expected to make a penny outof again."

  The Schoolmaster's gesture of impatience was one of resignation also.

  "It's a specious argument, Davey," he said, "but I wish to heaven you'dkept clear of the whole business."

  That evening Davey called Deirdre and they wandered down the hillside,watching the sun set on the distant edge of the plains that stretched,northwards and inland, from the rise beyond Steve's.

  "I'm going to-morrow," he said, and told her of the promise he had madehis mother. "I feel it's up to me to carry this job through, but whenit's over I'm coming back--going home. When I come back will you marryme, Deirdre?"

  "Yes," she said simply. "But if you'd only give up going, Davey!"

  Davey's face had a look of his father for the moment, a sombreobstinacy.

  "There's something in the game," he said. "You're on your mettle tocarry it through when you've begun. But you needn't worry. I'll be allright. My story'll be good enough if there is any trouble."

  Deirdre sighed.

  "But I can't bear the thought of your going," she said. "If only youwouldn't!"