"Then you are certain she is the babe you seek?" said the father,
without looking up.
"I reckon as near as you can be certain of anything. Her age tallies;
she was the only foundling girl baby baptized by you, you know,"--he
partly turned round appealingly to the Padre,--"that year. Injin woman
says she picked up a baby. Looks like a pretty clear case, don't it?"
"And the clothes, friend Cranch?" said the priest, with his eyes still
on the ground, and a slight assumption of easy indifference.
"They will be forthcoming, like enough, when the time comes," said
Cranch; "the main thing at first was to find the girl; that was MY job;
the lawyers, I reckon, can fit the proofs and say what's wanted, later
on."
"But why lawyers," continued Padre Pedro, with a slight sneer he could
not repress, "if the child is found and Senor Cranch is satisfied?"
"On account of the property. Business is business!"
"The property?"
Mr. Cranch pressed the back of his knife-blade on his boot, shut it up
with a click, and putting it in his pocket said calmly,--
"Well, I reckon the million of dollars that her father left when he
died, which naturally belongs to her, will require some proof that she
is his daughter.
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