"Convince you? Hell, I ain't trying to convince your father's son. You're like Black Jack. You got to find out yourself. We was with a Mick, once. Red-headed devil, he was. I says to Black Jack: 'Don't crack no jokes about the Irish around this guy!'
"'Why not?' says your dad.
"'Because there'd be an explosion,' says I.
"'H'm,' says Black Jack, and lifts his eyebrows in a way he had of doing.
"And the first thing he does is to try a joke on the Irish right in front of the Mick. Well, there was an explosion, well enough."
"What happened?" asked Terry, carried away with curiosity.
"What generally happened, kid, when somebody acted up in front of your dad?" From the air he secured an imaginary morsel between stubby thumb and forefinger and then blew the imaginary particle into empty space.
"He killed him?" asked Terry hoarsely.
"No," said Denver, "he didn't do that. He just broke his heart for him. Kicked the gat out of the hand of the poor stiff and wrestled with him. Black Jack was a wildcat when it come to fighting with his hands. When he got through with the Irishman, there wasn't a sound place on the fool. Black Jack climbed back on his horse and threw the gun back at the guy on the ground and rode off. Next we heard, the guy was working for a Chinaman that run a restaurant. Black Jack had taken all the fight out of him."
That scene out of the past drifted vividly back before Terry's eyes. He saw the sneer on the lips of Black Jack; saw the Irishman go for his gun; saw the clash, with his father leaping in with tigerish speed; felt the shock of the two strong bodies, and saw the other turn to pulp under the grip of Black Jack.