Then two figures came tramping through the rain, over the soggy ground, next splashing into the tent, the flaps of which Dick and Harry held aside.
As they came in Mr. Page almost tottered toward them.
"Well," he demanded impatiently. "What did you learn?"
"I guess the boy is yours, Mr. Page," Colquitt answered. "Bill Mosher told us a pretty straight story. He found the child at the railway wreck, and he and his wife took it home, expecting that parents or friends would soon claim it. Bill says his wife was a good woman, and, when no one claimed the boy, she kept it and loved it as her own. Bill admits that his part in the transaction was due to the hope of receiving a reward. After his wife died, Bill, it seems, went to the dogs, followed his naturally shiftless bent, and, from a common vagrant, became a drunkard and common thief. Yet Bill claims, with an air of a good deal of virtue, that he never stole anything he didn't really need, and that he brought Tag up the same way."
Mr. Page, white-faced and trembling, listened to the detective's dry recital.
"You have taken pains to find further verification of the fact that this unhappy boy is my son, haven't you?"
"Oh, yes," the detective went on. "Bill described with great minuteness the clothing the child wore when found, even to the embroidered letter 'p' on the underclothing. And Bill tells me that his sister has kept that clothing ever since, in the hope that something might come of it. The sister also has two pictures of Tag, taken when a baby."
"Where does that sister live?" cried the father. "Take me to her home at once!"
"She lives in another state, some four hundred miles from here," smiled Tom Colquitt. "Mr. Page, I advise that you find the boy, first. There isn't any real doubt as to his being your son. You had better wait for further proofs until after you have found the boy—-who, according to all accounts, stands badly in need of a real father just now."
"You are right—-quite right," admitted Mr. Page. "Yes, we will find my son first. But tell me something more. Didn't the boy know that Bill Mosher wasn't his real father?"