Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill STEVE TREATS It was for several minutes, I suppose, that I stood drawing these silent morals. No man occupied himself with me. Quiet voices, and games of chance, and glasses lifted to drink, continued to be the peaceful order of the night. And into my thoughts broke the voice of that card-dealer who had already spoken so sagely. He also took his turn at moralizing. "What did I tell you?" he remarked to the man for whom he continued to deal, and who continued to lose money to him. "Tell me when?" " Didn't I tell you he'd not shoot ? " the dealer pursued with complacence. " You got ready to dodge. You had no call to be concerned. He's not the kind a man need feel anxious about." The player looked over at the Virginian, doubtfully. " Well," he said, " I don't know what you folks call a dangerous man." " Not him " exclaimed the dealer with admiration. " He's a brave man. That's different." The player seemed to follow this reasoning no better than I did. " It's not a brave man that's dangerous," continued the dealer. " It's the cowards that scare me." He paused that this might sink home." Fello' came in here las' Toosday," he went on. " He got into some misunderstanding about the drinks. Well, sir, before we could put him out of business, he'd hurt two perfectly innocent onlookers. They'd no more to do with it than you have," the dealer explained to me. " Were they badly hurt ? " I asked. " One of 'em was. He's died since." " What became of the man ? " " Why, we put him out of business, I told you. He died that night. But there was no occasion for any of it; and that's why I never like to be around where there's a coward. You can't tell. He'll always go to shooting before it's necessary, and there's no security who he'll hit.. But a man like t...