"Old Cameron," Steve said. "Johnny Watson says he was found dead on the road by Long Gully—a tree fallen on him—this morning."
"Steve!"
There was horror, and yet a vague relief, in her exclamation.
"Johnny says, Cameron went down to the Black Bull yesterday evening, and there was trouble between him and McNab—McNab having let him in for this cattle stealin' case, knowing Davey was in it," Steve went on. "But Thad got round him somehow, telling him that he didn't know Davey was in it, and he'd get off, anyhow, bein' Cameron's son. Buttered the old man up that way. Conal and the Schoolmaster'd be nabbed for sure, he made out. They were good enough friends when they parted only he'd had more'n a jugful, and a couple of the boys had to give him a leg-up to his horse. The brute must've shied at the dead tree near the gully, the ground was cut up round it. It fell on them both. Mrs. Cameron found 'm this morning."
"I'll go and see if there's anything I can do for her."
Deirdre took her hat down from behind the door.
Steve went on talking of Donald Cameron, muttering in his vague, childish fashion.
"However he came to get in with McNab I can't make out," he said. "There weren't no two greater enemies a while back. Oh, he was as mean as you make them, D.C., but he made his mark in the country."
Deirdre had on her hat.
"I'm going, Steve," she said. "I won't stay unless Mrs. Cameron's got no one with her; but the Rosses and Mrs. Morrison are sure to be there."