Steve's nod thanked the bluff heartiness of the big man.
"Good. Now for the things you don't know, Doc," he went on, his manner relaxing as he felt that his difficulties were lessening. "You didn't read the report I'd written. It told the whole story of the boy right. I tore it up after you'd—told me. I had to. If I hadn't, why, I'd have lost that anchor God Almighty flung out to me in my trouble. Next to my own little kiddie I love that boy. He's got into my heart good—what's left of it. You see, he's white, and he's no folks. That means the State handing him over to the folks set to deal with the 'strays' of God's world. It means his being out of my life when I most need him. I couldn't stand for that. If Nita and my little girl had been here it wouldn't have been that way. I'd have persuaded them to leave him with me. With no home to take him to I'd have no case. So I got busy on a report that made him out the bastard of An-ina and the dead trader. They can't claim him from his mother, even though she's a squaw. And anyway I've fixed it with McDowell they both remain with you."
Ross nodded prompt agreement.
"He's a bright kid and I'm glad. Glad for him and glad for you," he said heartily.
"I hoped that way," Steve went on quickly. "You see, Doc, I didn't tell you a thing till it was done. I was scared to take a chance." He sighed a deep relief. "The other things come easy with that fixed. I cut that report to the bone, and hid up all that concerned the boy. The work they asked of me was investigation into the death of two white men who were thought to be traders up in Unaga, where they didn't reckon there were any white folk. So I told them a yarn that's simple truth, but which hid up all the things I didn't see putting them wise to. They guessed these men had been murdered by the Eskimo. Well, they weren't. They fought to the death for the mother of this boy, and she was a white woman, and the wife of his father. It was the old game. A game I hope to play. Only the other man was a partner in the enterprise, and not the Indian Agent of the Allowa Reserve. I told them of the Indians, too. A race that sleeps half the year."
"The boy's been talking of them."
Ross sat up. A pair of keen eyes were shrewdly questioning.
Steve nodded.
"I guessed he'd be talking of them."
"The old yarn of hibernating folks," the Scotsman said, his eyes alight with tolerant amusement.