She clung to him.
"And I wouldn't do it," she sobbed, breathlessly.
CHAPTER XXXIII
It was nearly two months before Conal and Davey were back in the Wirree again.
They rode into the township one evening when the sun was sinking behind the purple range of the hills and making a rosy mist of the dust a mob of northern cattle raised.
Dust-grimed and silent, their whips curled on their arms, their dogs lean and limping at heel, they passed McNab's. They might have been any of a dozen cattle-men who were about the sale-yards that day; but McNab recognised them.
It was those cattle of Maitland's that stood between him and his suspicions of the game Conal and the Schoolmaster were on. He thought he knew the part they played in it, but itched for a straw of proof. He hurried to the doorway and stood in it, chewing his underlip, as he watched the road-weary, weedy beasts and their drovers trail out of the town.
Conal saw him.
"Pullin' 'em up and comin' back for a drink in a minute, McNab," he yelled.