Deirdre came to the doorway.
McNab had just arrived. A skinny, raw-boned boy from the Wirree was taking his horse and cart to the stables. She had seen it draw up a few minutes before and wondered why McNab had come. She had heard Steve's greeting to him and McNab's reply.
"Oh, there you are, Deirdre," he said, shuffling towards her and holding out his hand. She disregarded it, looking into his eyes.
McNab was in a good temper. The smile wrinkling the skin about his mouth told that he had some secret cause for being well pleased with himself and the world at large. He could afford to forgive her.
"What's that you were saying about father?" she asked.
"Haven't you heard? Why it's out of the world you are here, Steve. It's the talk of Wirreeford this business of young Davey duffin'! And the Schoolmaster says it's none of Davey Cameron's business, but his. I wasn't sure Farrel was in it meself, before—had me suspicions of course—but nothing to go on. Conal's business I knew it was; but the devil who gave him long legs knows where he is. He knew when to leave. Smells a sinking ship like a rat at sea, Conal does."
Neither Deirdre nor Steve spoke. McNab's eyes wandered from one to the other of them. He continued, chuckling, as though enjoying the joke:
"He's saying—the Schoolmaster—that Young Davey was a good stockman, and when he quarrelled with his father he gave him a job and was paying him wages, reg'lar, till he got something else to do, or went home again. And there was no more to it than that. Davey, of course, tried to bluff things out at first; but there was an information out, signed by Cameron, so the story wouldn't wash that he was on D.C.'s business."
Deirdre clenched her hands as McNab giggled; there was a malicious, slow glimmer in his eyes as they rested on her.
"When Cameron got a suspicion someone was liftin' cattle from the back hills, he was busy enough givin' information —keen enough to catch the moonlighters! But he didn't reck'n on his boy being taken in charge of a mob.