"All I know," he said bitterly, "is that I was looking for him before I left the town to tell him what mother had told me about the raid McNab and the old man and M'Laughlin were getting up. At the Black Bull they said they'd been baiting Conal—about me—and he'd gone out looking for me—promising to do for me. Some one said he'd gone to the store. I went there 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 the creek 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 the Bull?" the Schoolmaster asked.
"Yes, but I'd seen McNab in the bar a couple of minutes before. It couldn'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," he said, "but she didn't think he meant it. Just his hot-headed way of talking! McNab must have maddened him, filled him up with drink. I can't tell you how it goes against the grain to believe he could have done a thing 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?"