world--but how I'd got that idea to help her, and was willing to carry
it out as long as I could."

"Did you keep a copy of that letter?" asked the Colonel, straitening his
mask-like mouth.

"No," said Corbin moodily. "What was the good? I know'd she'd got the
letter,--and she did,--for that is what she wrote back." He laid another
letter before the Colonel, who hastily read a few lines and then brought
his fat white hand violently on the desk.

"Why, d--n it all, sir, this is BLACKMAIL! As infamous a case of
threatening and chantage as I ever heard of."

"Well," said Corbin, dejectedly, "I don't know. You see she allows that
I murdered Frisbee to get hold of his claim, and that I'm trying to buy
her off, and that if I don't come down with twenty thousand dollars on
the nail, and notes for the rest, she'll prosecute me. Well, mebbe the
thing looks to her like that--mebbe you know I've got to shoulder that
too. Perhaps it's all in the same line."

Colonel Starbottle for a moment regarded Corbin critically. In spite of
his chivalrous attitude towards the homicidal faculty, the Colonel
was not optimistic in regard to the baser pecuniary interests of his
fellow-man. It was quite on the cards that his companion might have
murdered his partner to get possession of the claim. It was true that
Corbin had voluntarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto unknown
responsibility that had never been even suspected, and was virtually
self-imposed. But that might have been the usual one unerring blunder of
criminal sagacity and forethought. It was equally true that he did not
look or act like a mean murderer; but that was nothing. However, there
was no evidence of these reflections in the Colonel's face. Rather he
suddenly beamed with an excess of politeness. "Would you--er--mind, Mr.
Corbin, whilst I am going over those letters again, to--er--step across
to my office--and--er--bring me the copy of 'Wood's Digest' that lies on
my table? It will save some time."

The stranger rose, as if the service was part of his self-imposed
trouble, and as equally hopeless with the rest, and taking his hat
departed to execute the commission. As soon as he had left the building
Colonel Starbottle opened the door and mysteriously beckoned the
bar-keeper within.

"Do you remember anything of the killing of a man named Frisbee over in
Fresno three years ago?"

The bar-keeper whistled meditatively. "Three years
ago--Frisbee?--Fresno?--no? Yes--