The last days on the road were taken more easily. The mob went slowly eastward, grazing as it moved, and was in prime condition when Conal handed it over to Maitland in Cooburra, on the New South Wales side. Maitland was a big man in the district, head of the well-known firm of stock dealers; no difficulties were made about the turn-over. When Conal had had some talk with him, and Davey and he had loafed about the town for a day or two, they went out again with half a hundred poor beasts from a drought-stricken Western run.
On the road behind the mob, despite their secret resentment, Long Conal and Davey Cameron had come to the dumb understanding of road mates. It did nothing to break the silence between them. Davey yielded Conal an unconscious homage. He did it with grudging humility; but there was no breaking the barrier of Conal's reserve. Notwithstanding his blithe recklessness, his daring and bragging enthusiasm, there was a stern quality, an unplumbed depth in Conal. He endured Davey's company, but there was that in his mind against him which one man does not easily forgive another. As they drew nearer Wirreeford, and the thoughts of each took the same track, the latent animosity vibrated between them again.
Conal lost no time in getting out of the township and taking the road to the hills, Davey, conscious that it was Conal, and not he, who would stand well in the eyes of Deirdre and the Schoolmaster when the story of the road was told, lingered at Hegarty's.
A brooding bitterness possessed him. He knew that Conal had wanted him until this deal was fixed up, not only because he was short of a man when Pat and Tim Kearney cleared out, but because he was afraid how he, Davey, might use the knowledge he had told the Schoolmaster he possessed about some other of Conal's cattle dealings. As for himself, Davey knew that not only had his independence demanded a job, but something of the spirit of adventure, a recklessness of consequences, had appealed to him in the moonlighting of a couple of hundred scrub cattle.
He wondered what he would do when the Schoolmaster and Conal and Deirdre left the hills. He knew that a share of the money the cattle had brought would be his. He thought that he would go away from the South when he got it, and strike out in some new line of life for himself.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Davey was on his way to Steve's when he saw that the wooden church with a zinc roof, which had just been built in Wirreeford, was lighted, and that people were going into it.
It was early evening, the sky clear above the sharp outlines of the building, a few stars quivering in the limpid twilight.
Davey pulled up his horse to stare at the church. The place had been building a long while. This was the first time he had seen it up and finished.