That Was All Very Well, I Replied, But How Could Any One Who Was Not A Poltroon Endure To Be Publicly Insulted And Challenged Without Flying Into A Rage And Going For His Enemy?

He smiled and answered that I was an ignorant boy and would understand these things better some day, after

Knowing a good many fighters. There were some, he said, who were men of fiery temper, who would fly at and kill any one for the slightest cause - an idle or imprudent word perhaps. There were others of a cool temper whose ambition it was to be great fighters, who fought and killed people not because they hated or were in a rage with them, but for the sake of the fame it would give them. Barboza was one of this cool kind, who when he fought killed, and he was not to be drawn into a fight by any ordinary person or any fool who thought proper to challenge him.

Thus spoke my mentor and did not wholly remove my doubts. But I must now go back to the earlier date, when this strange family were newly come to our neighbourhood.

All of the family appeared proud of their strangeness and of the reputation of their fighting brother, their protector and chief. No doubt he was an unspeakable ruffian, and although I was accustomed to ruffians even as a child and did not find that they differed much from other men, this one with his fierce piercing eyes and cloud of black beard and hair, somehow made me uncomfortable, and I accordingly avoided Los Alamos.

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