"So the Schoolmaster's swearin' young Davey Cameron was no more than a hired drover to him," said McNab.

He was talking to Steve.

"What's that you're saying?"

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.

"Troopers in Melbourne didn't believe Davey's yarn about being his father's son, seein' they'd got Donald Cameron's written word against mobs coming from the South to the markets thereabouts. Farrel's story is a good 'un. He says he struck a bargain with Donald Cameron, as agent for Maitland & Co., stock and store dealers, of Cooburra, New South Wales, a couple of years ago. These beasts were to have gone over the border when next some of Maitland's stockmen were in the South; but the rivers were down, the stock rollin' fat, and prices up, so he thought it a pity to lose the market, and sent Young Davey with 'm round the swamp to Melbourne yards, not telling him details of the deal. Davey havin' had a difference with his father was glad of the job; it's a sort of challenge to Cameron. Clever of the Schoolmaster! I wonder what D.C.'ll do about it He can see it's a let-off for Davey, if he stands to it, a let-off for the Schoolmaster too. If he doesn't—well, I think Davey, 'n your father, my dear, 'll spend a bit of time on the roads.

"The queer part of the business is that though half a dozen men's beasts may be in the mob, the brands've been so neatly faked, no one can swear to 'em. All the clear skins've got Maitland's brand on. So the charge of cattle-stealin' 'll stand or fall be what Cameron says—or does. A couple of white-faced cows with D.C. on 'm are the only give-aways in the lot!"

"He won't put his own son away," blurted Steve.

"P'raps! P'raps not!"

McNab fidgeted.

"Hardly likely!" Deirdre cried.

"Mick Ross 'n Bud Morrison were in here, couple of nights ago," Steve went on. "And they said they'd swear blind none of their beasts were in the lot. All the hill settler's 'd be prepared to do the same, they said—rather than put Davey or the Schoolmaster in a fix."

"Y—es," snarled McNab, "so I'm told!"

Deirdre laughed. His disgust and disappointment delighted her.

"You didn't reckon on that, did you, Mr. McNab," she said.

She went off down the road to the paddock where Steve's two milking cows were, and presently, drove them, one swinging before the other, into the yard at the back of the shanty. She was easier in her mind than she had been since the Schoolmaster had gone—even since Davey rode out of Narrow Valley. But the sight of McNab disturbed her. She bailed and leg-roped the cows. Wondering why he had come, as she milked, and the milk fell with a gentle swish into the pail between her knees, she could not believe that it was merely to bring them the good news that Davey and the Schoolmaster were likely to get off.

She turned the cows into the paddock beside the bails and took the pail of warm, sweet-smelling milk indoors.

When she went into the kitchen McNab was sitting in the big chair by the fire. He looked up at her. The firelight showed his face and the smile that glimmered on it. He seemed to be remembering, and with triumph, that other night when he had sat there.

Steve, crouched on the bench opposite him, was shivering and sobbing.

Deirdre put the milk in its place.

"What's the matter? What have you done to him?" she cried, facing McNab.

He took a heavy chain from his pocket. It clanked with a dull, slow sound.

Steve started from his chair.

"Oh, send him away, Deirdre, send him away!" he sobbed.

Deirdre knew the meaning of the trick. She had heard it often. It was an old dodge to discover escaped convicts, this clanking of a chain near them. A man who had worn irons never forgot the sound they made, and whenever he heard it would start and tremble. The rage that burned to a white heat kept her silent a moment.

"You'd never 've thought it, would you, Deirdre? Him a lag, and you a lag's daughter?" McNab chuckled.

"It's a lie!"

"Is it? You ask—Uncle Steve. It's been a puzzle to me, more'n eighteen years, why two chaps from the Island never came for the help that was promised 'm, and they with a reward out against them. I knew they'd got safe up the river because a boat was found on the bank, beyond where M'Laughlin's is now. I meant to touch a bit of that reward, too, but it's never too late to mend, as they say."

"You'd never send us back to the Island?" Steve cried. "You'd never do that, McNab?"

"Wouldn't I?"

McNab laughed softly. He was enjoying the spectacle of Steve's whimpering, the trembling of his withered limbs—the sense of power that it gave him.

"You—" Deirdre gasped; but anger choked her.

"There, now," he interrupted. "I wouldn't be calling me names, if I were you, Deirdre. After the pretty way you treated me a month or two ago, too. Would you be forgettin', my dear? It would be a pity to make an enemy of me, as I said once before. It's a bad enemy I make, they say, and a nasty temper I've got when I'm roused. But there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Deirdre. You can twist me round your little finger if you like."

The firelight was in his eyes.

"See here, Steve," he said. "I've got something to say to Deirdre. She's a sensible girl, got her head well-screwed on. We're old pals, me 'n Deirdre. You go outside while I talk things over with her. We'll see what can be done."

Steve scuttled across the room. He was crying helplessly, and pulled his coat sleeve across his nose as he went to the door.

"Now," McNab said genially, "you sit there, Deirdre, and we can talk."

Deirdre took the chair Steve had left. She sat very stiff and straight in it. She knew what was coming. There were fear and loathing in her eyes. But McNab only saw how great and dark they were, how red the curve of her lips, how full of vigour and grace the lines of her strong, young body.

"You know what'll happen if it's known Farrel's an escaped convict?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Port Arthur, irons 'n the rest of it! Well, nobody need know, lest I like. There's a couple of lads can prove who Steve and y'r father are, but they won't—lest I like."

"What are you going to like? That's what I want to know," Deirdre cried, her hands gripping the arms of the chair.

"Depends on you, my dear!"

He leant forward.

There was appeal in her eyes. But her eagerness, her hunted wild-bird air only stirred in McNab a lust for the capture and taming of her.

"If you promise to marry me, nothing'll be heard of it," he said.

Deirdre was not surprised. She had expected something like what he had said. The sound of it stunned her nevertheless.

"P'raps the Schoolmaster'll get off this affair of the cattle, but that's only three years," McNab said. "The other'd be till the expiration of his sentence, probably for the end of his life, my dear; 'n Steve—a month or two'd be the end of him! You're the price of their freedom. You pays y'r money and takes y'r choice, Deirdre."

Deirdre did not hear him. After all, she was thinking, this was a proposition. She was even grateful for it. Anything seemed better than helplessness, hopelessness—the terrible prospect of not being able to avert this ultimate catastrophe which threatened Dan. All that had been sensitive to joy or sorrow in her seemed dead. She realised only one overwhelming necessity. One fact, crowding out all others, filled her mind. Thad McNab had said that Dan would have to go back to the Island and that she could prevent it. She did not think of Davey at all, except to remember, vaguely, that she had promised to marry him, and that now she was going to break her promise and say that she would marry McNab, if—

She looked at him as he sat by the hearth. Misshapen, with unkempt, brakish hair and beard, turning grey, wrinkled and withered, he was no mate for her glowing youth! But what did that matter? She saw the Schoolmaster's face as she had last seen it—the dear, thin, eager face with deep lines, drawn by the sleepless ache of his heart, on it. She knew now why there had been an underlying grief and bitterness in what he said when he went away; knew that he must have been afraid of recognition and its consequences. But Mrs. Cameron had required him to save Davey. It was all plain now. Yet Deirdre realised that what he had done he would probably have done without her having to ask for it. What part had Mrs. Cameron had in his life that she could command him—that she dared ask him to lay down his life for her? What had she done for him? In the old time the Schoolmaster had said: "We owe her more than either you or I can hope to repay, Deirdre." But surely he had paid—on the night of the fires if at no other time. And now—

McNab's gaze on her recalled her mind to what he had said.

She met it steadily, unwaveringly.

Yes. She would marry him, if—Her thought went back on its track. If what? Yes, if Dan got off—if he did not get the three years. If he had to go to prison for three years, then it would be no use to marry McNab. He could not help Dan then. For three years he would have to live in a prison, wear filthy, hideous clothes, work like a beast of burden.

"I'll tell you this day week," she said.

"Think you'll know then how the trial's goin'," he snarled. "Well, there's an end to three years, don't forget, my pretty, and if he gets an acquittal on this, the other'll come out, unless—"

She measured him with her eyes.

"You marry me the day he is free of this charge—if he gets free—or on the day he gets his three years—if he's goin' to get them, and you don't want 'm to be for life."

He leaned forward, his voice husky with eagerness.

"If you change y'r mind, my dear, of course I can change mine."

He laughed uneasily, his fingers twitching.

"But I'll give you till this day week to make up y'r mind which it is to be. Then you give me y'r answer. Is it a bargain?"

"Yes," Deirdre said. She was dull and weary—beaten.

He rose from his chair and shuffled towards the door.

"Then I'll go and get the house ready for you," he cried, gleefully. "I'm not afraid what y'r answer'll be. Oh, you're snared, my pretty bird, and there's no way out for you, if you'd keep Dan Farrel, as he calls himself, out of the darbies, and him in his blindness, going to the Island again! It's taken a heap of schemin' to get you—but I set my mind on you when I saw you a slip of a girl coquettin' with Conal, at Hegarty's—the night you came back to the Wirree."

The desolation of her attitude reassured him.

"Good-bye, my pretty," he said in the doorway. "And someday, when y'r my wife, Deirdre, you'll kiss me good-bye."

He went out with a chattering clatter of laughter.

Steve came back to the kitchen.

"Have you been able to manage him, Deirdre?" he asked, feverishly. "What have you said to him? To go back there—"

His face worked pitifully; his hands twisted over each other.

"You don't know what it is like. I'd kill myself rather than go back, Deirdre. And your father! What'll he do? It'll be worse for him than for me. He's got you to think of. What did McNab say? Will he do anything for you, Deirdre? He said he would do anything in the world for you. And you'd want him to help us, wouldn't you? You wouldn't let Dan and y'r old Uncle Stevie, go over there again?"

"It'll be all right," she said, looking past him. "You mustn't think of it any more, Stevie. It was just to worry you, he said that."

"Oh, it's a wonderful girl you are!" He clung to her hand, fondling it, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Nobody here to save us, your father and me, but you, Deirdre! And you to deal with McNab—send him away with a smile—pleased with himself."

No idea of the terms McNab was likely to have made with her occurred to him.

"If only there'd been someone here to help us," she cried passionately. "If only father, or Davey, or even Conal, had been here! But to have had to meet it alone."

Her voice broke. She began to cry, finding relief in utter abandonment. Steve put his arms round her, trying to comfort her.

"Deirdre! Deirdre!" he muttered distressfully. "Don't cry! It's your father's own girl you are. So brave! Meetin' the devil himself with your clear eyes, 'n me no more than a shiverin' old corpse where he is!"

Deirdre lifted her eyes. She looked into the pathetic quiveringly childish, old face bent over her.

"It's the best thing you could have said to me—that I'm my father's own girl, Uncle Stevie," she said, "My father's girl shouldn't be crying like this when there's work—and a lot of thinking to do."