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A diversion came from the Captain, a grave, formal man as indeed becomes one who has with him almost perpetually the responsibility of many hundreds of lives:

“Did I understand rightly, Colonel Ogilvie that you have killed men for such a cause?” The old gentleman lifted his shaggy white eyebrows in faint surprise, and answered slowly and with an easiness which only half hid an ineffable disdain:

“Why, cert’nly!” The simple acceptance of the truth left the Captain flabbergasted. He grew red and was beginning: “I thought”—when the girl who considered it possible that a quick quarrel might arise between the two strong men, interrupted:

“Perhaps Captain, you don’t understand our part of the world. In Kentucky we still hold with the old laws of Honour which we sometimes hear are dead—or at any rate back numbers—in other countries. My father has fought duels all his life. The Ogilvies have been fighters way back to the time of the settlement by Lord Baltimore. My Cousin Dick tells me—for father never talks of them unless he has to—that they never forced quarrels for their own ends; though I must say that they are pretty touchy”—She was in turn interrupted by her father who said quickly: