“Um!...  Got a hoss out here.  Want you should both come and look her over.”  He raised himself to his feet, and was followed by Jed Briggs and his wife to the fence.

“Likely mare,” said Scattergood, blandly.

Startlingly Mrs. Briggs laughed, shrilly, unpleasantly, as a woman laughs in great fear.

“Gawd!” said Jed Briggs, “it’s—­”

“Yes,” said Scattergood, gently.  “It’s Asa Levens’s mare.  Was she here last Tuesday?”

“She was here Tuesday, Scattergood Baines,” said Jed Briggs.  “What’s the meanin’ of this?”

“I knowed she was somewheres Tuesday,” Scattergood said, impersonally.  “Didn’t know where, but I mistrusted she’d been to that place frequent.  Jest got in and give her her head.  She brought me....  Asa Levens is dead.”

“Dead!” said Jed Briggs in a hushed voice.

“He deserved to die....  He deserved to die....  He deserved to die ...” the young woman repeated shrilly, hysterically.

“Was you in town to lodge Tuesday night, Jed?”

“Yes.”

“Asa come every lodge night, Mis’ Briggs?”

“He always came—­when Jed was here and when Jed was away....  When Jed was here he’d jest set eyin’ me and eyin’ me ... and when Jed was gone he—­he talked....”

“Asa owned the mortgage on the place,” said Jed, as if that explained something.  Scattergood nodded comprehension.

“Keep up your int’rest, Jed?”

“Year behind.  Asa was threatenin’ foreclosure.”

“Threatened to throw us offn the place ... ag’in and ag’in he threatened—­and we’d ‘a’ starved, ’cause Jed hain’t strong.  It’s me does most of the work....  What we got into this place is all we got on earth ... and he threatened to take it.”

“He come Tuesday night,” said Scattergood, as a prompter speaks.

“Hush, Lindy,” said Jed.

“I calculate you’d best both of you talk,” said Scattergood.  “You’d better tell me, Jed, jest why you shot Asa Levens.”

Lindy Briggs uttered a choking cry and clutched her husband; Jed Briggs stared at Scattergood with hunted eyes.

“It’ll be best for you to tell.  I’m standin’ your friend, Jed Briggs....  Better tell me than the sheriff....  Asa Levens was here Tuesday night....”

“He excused us from payin’ our int’rest,” said Jed, and then he, too, laughed shrilly.  “Let us off our int’rest.  Lindy told me when I come home.  Couldn’t hardly b’lieve my ears.”  Jed was talking wildly, pitifully.  “Lindy was a-layin’ on the floor, sobbin’, when I come home, and she was afeard to tell me why Asa let us off our int’rest, but I coaxed her, Mr. Baines, and she told me—­and so I shot Asa Levens ’cause he wa’n’t fit to live.”

Scattergood nodded.  “Sich things was wrote on Asa’s face,” he said.  “But what about Abner?  Wa’n’t goin’ to let him suffer f’r your act, Jed?  What about Abner?”

“Him too....  All of that blood....  I met Abner on the road of a Tuesday when I wa’n’t quite myself with all that had happened, and I stopped his hoss and accused his brother to his face....  He listened quiet-like, and then he laughed.  That’s what Abner done, he laughed....  When I heard he was arrested f’r the killin’, I laughed....  Back in Bible times, if one of a family sinned, God wiped out the whole of the kin....”