nd made his way up to Monterey."

"And the child?" asked the Padre, with a sudden and strange asperity
that boded no good to the penitent; "the child thus ruthlessly
abandoned--what became of it?"

"That's just it, the child," assented the stranger, gravely. "Well, if
that man was on his death-bed instead of being here talking to you,
he'd swear that he thought the cap'en was sure to come up to it the
next minit. That's a fact. But it wasn't until one day that he--that's
me--ran across one of that crew in Frisco. 'Hallo, Cranch,' sez he to
me, 'so you got away, didn't you? And how's the cap'en's baby? Grown a
young gal by this time, ain't she?' 'What are you talkin about,' ez I;
'how should I know?' He draws away from me, and sez, 'D--- it,' sez he,
'you don't mean that you' . . . I grabs him by the throat and makes him
tell me all. And then it appears that the boat and the baby were never
found again, and every man of that crew, cap'en and all, believed I had
stolen it."

He paused. Father Pedro was staring at the prospect with an
uncompromising rigidity of head and shoulder.

"It's a bad lookout for me, ain't it?" the stranger continued, in
serious reflection.

"How do I know," said the priest harshly, without turning his head,
"that you did not make away with this child?"

"Beg pardon."

"That you did not complete your revenge by--by--killing it, as your
comrade suspected you? Ah! Holy Trinity," continued Father Pedro,
throwing out his hands with an impatient gesture, as if to take the
place of unutterable thought.

"How do YOU know?" echoed the stranger coldly.

"Yes."

The stranger linked his fingers together and threw them over his knee,
drew it up to his chest caressingly, and said quietly, "Because you DO
know."

The Padre rose to his feet.

"What mean you?" he said, sternly fixing his eyes upon the speaker.
Their eyes met. The stranger's were gray and persistent, with hanging
corner lids that might have concealed even more purpose than they
showed. The Padre's were hollow, open, and the whites slightly brown, as
if with tobacco stains. Yet they were the first to turn away.

"I mean," returned the stranger, with the same practical gravity, "that
you know it wouldn't pay me to come here, if I'd killed the baby, unless
I wanted you to fix things right with me up there," pointing skywards,
"and get absolution; and I've told you THAT wasn't in my line."

"Why do you seek me, then?" demanded the Pa