“And many thanks,” said I. “Your warning, as you remark, has the mighty merit of being early. Rest secure the General will profit by it; he may even contrive some counter reason for amazement that shall become to our folk of Secession the very mother of dismay.” When, now, Noah was about to go, he came back from the door with a new thought. “This on Rivera's word,” said he. “The boy, however, is to be trusted when he tells merely what he sees and hears, and is not asked to think. There would seem to be a rough Maryland brood to hang about the tap-rooms--as many as ten, all told. They belong, so to say it, with that Catron whom we think of now and then for the pleasure he gave us at Gadsby's. Catron, somewhat the worse of his sword-arm, is also in town. These ruffians use your name and mine, and never in a way of praise. Should you go about the roads of nights, carry an ear for ones to come up behind. Also, walk warily where corners are dark.” “And you?” said I, laughing at the comic twist with which Noah ornamented his counsel; “and you? Have you gone upon precautions?” “No more than you see,” said Noah, bringing to light a knife of peculiar make. “I have no great burden of respect for just one man, however urgent his irritation or its reason. But a horde, and the members to be of midnight, hangdog sort, arouses the latent prudence of my race, and I comfort my nervousness with toys like this.” Here the queer knife made a flourish. I took the weapon from his hand. It was one of those new knives called a bowie, and the first in my fingers. There was a buckhorn haft, and the 9-inch blade showed thick at the back with plenty of steel. This gave it weight, and it balanced in one's hand like a hatchet, and all sanguine and hopeful to the feel. “It is a Maryland conception,” said Noah, “and therefore a most fitting rebuke to what thugs shall come out of that commonwealth on a mission for one's disaster.” Then, reclaiming the bowie: “The courage of a race appears in the length of its weapons. The shorter the weapon the hardier the strain Now, whoever devised that knife had a Norse heart in him; his instinct was to go close in to his enemy, and comeback covered with blood.” “And do you believe,” said I, “those fellows of whom Rivera tells were brought here by that Catron to work a revenge for him?” “They are here by favor of his money, truly,” responded Noah, “as Rivera overheard them say. And for that revenge you speak of, it will be long ere Catron works one for himself in person, since his arm has turned dead in deference to my rapier. He could not so much as point a pistol with it.”