Do you know what would have happened if you had not got here today?
"I'll tell you," she went on again, giving him no opportunity to inject a word.

"Dale would have taken the Double A away from me! He told me so! He was over here yesterday, gloating over me.

Do you know what he claims?
That I am not a Bransford; that I am merely an adopted daughter--not even a legally adopted one; that father just took me, when I was a year old, without going through any legal formalities.
"Dale claims to have proof of that.

He won't tell me where he got it.
He has some sort of trumped-up evidence, I suppose, or he would not have talked so confidently.

And he is all-powerful in the basin.