"Good morning, Mr. Tower."
"Good morning, Sergeant. Have you seen my daughter?"
Dunbar grinned. "She and about a platoon of lovesick soldiers have gone somewhere. They cluster around her like flies around a honey jar. I don't blame them. If I were thirty years younger, I'd be with her too. But there's safety in numbers. You needn't worry about her."
"I'm not worried. How about my freckle-faced son?"
"He's been spending his time at the stables, listening to tales of Indian fights. Hope he doesn't believe all of them."
There was a vast tenderness and a mighty longing in Dunbar's eyes as he watched the playing children. He had lived his life as he saw fit and, given the same circumstances, probably he'd live it over again the same way. Joe looked keenly at him. Dunbar's army service had hardened him without making him callous. But only now, when it was too late, did Dunbar think about all he might have done and hadn't. He looked upon the children with the almost desperate longing of an older man who wished they belonged to him.
Suddenly remembering, Joe asked, "Sergeant, can you tell me anything about this Hugo Gearey?"
Dunbar looked frankly at him. "Why?"
Joe, vastly talented when it came to minding his own affairs, squirmed. But he felt that he should not say that Emma had asked him to find out.
"I just wanted to know."