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 that black-headed guy is
(the dealer indicated the Virginian) need never worry you. And
there's another point why there's no need to worry about him:
IT'D BE TOO LATE."

These good words ended the moralizing of the dealer. He had given
us a piece of his mind. He now gave the whole of it to dealing
cards. I loitered here and there, neither welcome nor unwelcome