it were not so, as Rounds pointed out, we would
make a hero of the public executioner. He should be as heroic a figure
as a general. But as I tell you, at the moment, when Rounds said, "when
I killed him," I was shocked. I had never before realized how violence
was a thing apart from my life. I had looked at the representation of
murder on the stage. I had read novels with murder as the mainspring. I
had seen shootings and stabbings in moving pictures. Yet, not until that
moment had I any suspicion that violence was so rare a thing and that
most of our lives are far, far removed from it. Actually, I have never
struck a man, nor has any man ever lifted his hand against me in anger.

It was, therefore, a startling thing to hear Rounds confess to having
killed a fellow man. It was awesome. And yet, let me say, that at once I
was possessed of a great desire to learn all about it, and down in my
heart I feared that he would decide he had said something that he should
not have said, and would either deny his statement or modify it in some
way. I wanted to hear all the details. I was hugely interested. Was it
morbidity? Then I came to myself after what was a shock, and awoke to
the fact that he was talking in his quiet, even way.

"But those Tlingas held the belief, and that was all there was to it,"
he was saying.

I came to attention and said, "Of course. It is natural," for I feared
to have him know that I was inattentive even for that short space, and
waited for elucidations.

"It seems," he went on, "that the tribe was dying out. Helm, who first
told me something of it at Buenaventura, was one of those scientists who
have to invent a new theory for every new thing they were told of. He
said it was either because of eating too much meat, or not enough. I
forget which. There had been a falling off in the birth rate. The
Tocalinian who had lived with them, and who joined us at the headwaters
of the Codajaz, maintained that there had been too much inbreeding. So
there was some arrangement by means of which they invited immigrants, as
it were. Men from other neighboring tribes were encouraged to join the
Tlingas. And they did. The Tlingas had a fat land and welcomed the
immigrants. The immigrants on their part expected to have an easy time."

"That would make for racial improvement," I hazarded.

"Why?" he asked.

"The best from other lands would tend to improve their race. That was my
idea when I spoke," I said.

He