I think superseded--sir, properly
superseded--by the alternative of ordeal by battle in the mediaeval
times. I don't myself fancy these pecuniary fashions of settling
wrongs,--but go on."

"I wrote her," continued Corbin, "that her son was dead, but that he and
me had some interests together in a claim, and that I was very glad to
know where to send her what would be his share every month. I thought it
no use to tell her I killed him,--may be she might refuse to take it. I
sent her a hundred dollars every month since. Sometimes it's been pretty
hard sleddin' to do it, for I ain't rich; sometimes I've had to borrow
the money, but I reckoned that I was only paying for my share in this
here business of his bein' dead, and I did it."

"And I understand you that this Jeffcourt really had no interest in your
claim?"

Corbin looked at him in dull astonishment. "Not a cent, of course; I
thought I told you that. But that weren't his fault, for he never
had anything, and owed me money. In fact," he added gloomily, "it
was because I hadn't any more to give him--havin' sold my watch
for grub--that he quo'lled with me that day, and up and called me a
'sneakin' Yankee hound.' I told you he drove me hard."

The Colonel coughed slightly and resumed his jaunty manner. "And
the--er--mother was, of course, grateful and satisfied?"

"Well, no,--not exactly." He stopped again and took up his letters once
more, sorted and arranged them as if to play out his unfinished but
hopeless hand, and drawing out another, laid it before the Colonel. "You
see, this Mrs. Jeffcourt, after a time, reckoned she ought to have MORE
money than I sent her, and wrote saying that she had always understood
from her son (he that never wrote but once a year, remember) that this
claim of ours (that she never knew of, you know) was paying much more
than I sent her--and she wanted a return of accounts and papers, or
she'd write to some lawyer, mighty quick. Well, I reckoned that all
this was naturally in the line of my trouble, and I DID manage to scrape
together fifty dollars more for two months and sent it. But that didn't
seem to satisfy her--as you see." He dealt Colonel Starbottle another
letter from his baleful hand with an unchanged face. "When I got
that,--well, I just up and told her the whole thing. I sent her the
account of the fight from the newspapers, and told her as how her son
was the Frisbee that was my pardner, and how he never had a cent in the