"We do, Steve." A flush lit the Superintendent's cheek. A deep fire was alight in his dark eyes. "We understand each other better than you think. You'll get your discharge just as quickly as I can put it through. You hadn't said much, and I thought—but I'm glad you've told me as a man, and not as—an officer."
He stood up from his chair with an abruptness which betrayed something of his feelings. Steve held out the packet of letters.
"Will you take these, sir?" he said with a return to their official relations.
McDowell nodded.
"Yes. Say, about that boy and the squaw you brought down. You left them at Deadwater? It looks like some proposition. We'll need to hand them over to the Reserve missionary. It's hell these white men, when they get away north, bringing these bastard half-breeds into the world. What's the mother? One of those Sleeper Indians?"
For a moment Steve remained gazing out of the window at the view of the parade ground which the sunlight rendered almost picturesque. He was thinking of the two reports which he had prepared. The first one that had been the simple truth, and the second one which had been only partly the true story, the rest changed in view of his own position. A tender light for a moment melted the cold hatred of his eyes. He was thinking of the white boy which he had reported as the bastard of An-ina, with a view to obviate the official claim on him as a white child.
"Yes," he said. "And I guess we'd need to hand them over to the missionary for a while. But Doc Ross and his wife were crazy to look after them. You see, they've a pretty swell place, and they're the best folks I know. I left them with them, and I'd say we can't do better, anyway for a while."
"Yes," McDowell agreed. "It'll make things easy. I'll put that into a letter to the Commissioner and it'll save worrying with the folk of the Indian Department. Well, so long, Steve. Yes, I'll take these letters, and put the thing through for you. But when you quit, for God's sake don't go and mess things. Don't queer one of the best lives it's ever been my good fortune to have under my command."
Steve's eyes were serious as he watched McDowell move towards the door.
"Don't worry, sir. The queering's done already. Whatever I do will be—well, just what I've fixed to do. No more and no less."