"Certain marks of degeneracy shared with lower animals and habitual criminals, you call this the mark of Cain." "Have you looked at yourself?" "Would you direct me to Mr. Paladin?" "Mr. Paladin over there." "Control, gentleness, concentration, and terror!" "With those quality, Genghis Khan conquered half the world." "Now, for your first lesson." "My dear sir, it will take many hundred hours of intensive practice before you are permitted to even touch an actual sword." "Temuchin-Khan, I am paying for the lesson?" "Of course but..." "I would like to have a lesson with a real sword." "Well, Temuchin-Kahn... you have earned your fee very well today." "Thank you, Mr. Paladin." "You will forgive my disturbing?" "I will." "Well, for $1,000, payable in advance?" "Count it out on the table." "I am Dr. Leopold Avatar." "Perhaps you've read about me." "Hmm." "Yes, you are Professor Cesare Lombroso's disciple, and his theory of criminal identification." "It is good to meet someone in this country who has heard of our work." "Well, I do I have a certain interest in criminology." "Ah, well, then perhaps you will know what these are for?" "Yes, they are used to measure what Lombroso has termed the "stigmata of degeneracy"." "Certain cranial abnormalities, low sensitivity to pain, primitive instincts found in cannibals and cave-dwellers, apes, animals, and habitual murderers." "In short, the mark of Cain." "And that is why I have come back to America." "Oh, a shortage of murderers in Europe this year?" "Oh, there's never a shortage of wife killers, murders of passion, momentary rage, that sort of thing." "My interest is in the habitual murderer." "The man who kills, 10, 20, 30 people." "For him it is not circumstance, or unrequited love, or even small prejudice that drives him to kill." "No, sir, with him it is constitutional." "He cannot help himself." "And that is the mark of Cain." "And that is what you hope to find in the Wild West." "In the words of Lacassagne, "Societies get the criminals they deserve."" "And what will you do with one if you catch him?" "Why, I should make a detailed record of his skull measurements and reflexes." "The James boys, the Daltons, Cherokee Bill," "Jake Trueblood, Tom Horn." "Their very names come rolling off the tongue like thunder." "How long I've dreamt of meeting some of them face to face." "The only one out of that bunch is left alive is Jake Trueblood." "And you don't want him." "Oh, why not?" "He's on my list." "But he's practically the head of it." "Jake's not a murderer." "No, he's never killed anyone expect in a fair fight." "Oh, perhaps so, but after 20 or 30 times, would you not agree that a pattern tends to emerge?" "What makes you think Jake would let you get that close to his skull?" "Well, for a thousand dollars, Mr. Paladin." "I expect you to arrange the details." "Now, here is an idealized projection of the arch-typical mass-murderer." "Now, you will note the long lower jaw." "The asymmetrical cranium." "The high cheekbones and narrow forehead." "That's Jake all right." "Well, you can see why I'm particularly anxious not to lose him." "Could we start this afternoon?" "Well, Jake is living in seclusion." "Too many hot-blooded young gun fighters running around with their tongues hanging out for the reputation of being the man that gunned downed Jake Trueblood." "And you don't believe that you could persuade a lonely old man to lend me the use of his skull for five minutes, in the interest of science?" "Well, it's possible that Jake might like to see this year's newspaper." "He might even enjoy a good bottle of wine." "You made up your mind, mister?" "You looking at me, mister?" "Well, shove your nose in some other direction, or I might mash it down for you." "Not in here." "Outside." "Can't rightly decide on either one of these." "I'll just keep my old one." "Enoch Harrison, wanted in Placerville for the murder of two miners last year." "Who says?" "I say." "You attract violence, don't you?" "Ma'am, will you take that gun off me?" "It's really quite fascinating, the way you did that." "It's very neat." "You goad a man into a fight." "Then kill him, in self-defense." "Now, what's that for?" " Merely to satisfy myself." " Of what?" "That you've killed an innocent man." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "Now, what we came in for was trail provisions." "Doesn't care much for human society, does he?" "Human society has never given him any reason to." "Better wait here, Professor." "Jake?" "Jake!" "So you want the credit of bringing down Jake Trueblood, huh?" "All right, go ahead and draw." "I'll give you a fair shake at it." "Jake, I didn't come here to kill you." "You didn't?" "I don't know any other reason a man come up in this canyon." "Hey, don't I know you?" "You look awful familiar to me." "Oh, you ain't no notch-collector." "What are you coming after me for?" "I brought a someone to see you." "That's a doctor, Jake." "A doctor of sorts." "He wants to make some measurements on you." "Ain't no one gonna measure me expect for a pine box." "I ain't ready for that yet." "Jake, there is a man of science." "He's come all the way from Europe just to measure your mangy old skull." "You may not realize it, but in Europe you are a very important man." "The last of the old gun hands." "Yes, sir, the kind they write books about." "Like Paul Revere and Robin Hood and Mike Fink." "They still remember me, huh?" "Yes, they do." "I'll bet it sure grabs them fast little trigger boys to think that old Jake is still walking around unventilated." "Maybe, but I suspect there are more people worrying about the high price of coffee." "Well, that's the trouble of this country today." "Too many men scraping off their beards and worrying about the high price of grub, instead of who's top gun, and who's gonna bring him down." "I wouldn't be surprised to wake up some morning and find them all wearing petty coats and drinking fresh cow's milk for breakfast." "Say, you wouldn't happen to have some store-bought vittles left over in your saddlebag, would you?" "Now, Jake, you're not going soft are you?" "I don't reckon I am." "But I'd sure as sell my soul to get a look at this year's newspaper and bottle of that good, honest drinking wine." "Jake, your soul's worth more than one bottle." "Try me and see." "All right, Professor, come on down." "And don't forget the wine." "Pina, come on down here." "Come on, come on." "Are friend here just brung us some store-bought grub." "You are his friend?" "I hope so." "Then why you betray this place to strangers?" "Do they pay you well?" "That stranger has no harm in him." "He's a man of science, possibly a fool, possibly both." "So is this a science." "If Jake no longer has the heart to use it." "I do." "Oh, Pina, he's our friend." "Oh, you be careful with that contraption, you understand?" "What are you doing?" "Low sensitivity to pain." " Perfect." " Who, me?" "I did not believe it was possible." "You have the ideal measurements." "Ideal for what?" "The perfect configuration of born murderer." "Well, now, you didn't have to come all this way just to find out if Jake Trueblood brought down a few men in his time." "And besides, what's my head got to do with it?" "Why, everything." "Whether you know it or not, sir." "it's the shape of the skull, and that alone, that has made you into a killer." "And now what happens?" "Nothing." "My job is finished." "You simple people have confirmed my theory." "Pina, it is only a theory and pretty far-fetched one." "My dear Mr. Paladin, let me assure you, a man with the cranial measurements of Jake Trueblood could no more help murdering his fellow man than a cat can help from killing mice." "Pina, he just doesn't believe that man has the free will to choose between good and evil?" "I suppose it's too late to start home today." "May we stay here tonight?" "I don't like that one, not what he says about Jake." "Well, it's just a lot foolishness." "Surely, to be a congenital murderer is no more disgraceful than any other kind of sickness." "He is not a murderer!" "Listen, he never killed, except to defend himself, or someone else, and..." "Agh, you can stay in the storeroom." "But make sure... both of you are gone by morning." "Avatar." "You didn't have to tell them all that, did you?" "Well, why not?" "The truth never hurt anyone." "No?" "What's that for?" "It's a small bonus." "For what?" "Well you see, my dear fellow, a few figures scribbled on a piece of paper obviously constitute proof of nothing at all." "What we need to return with is the irrefutable specimen itself?" "The what?" "The actual skull." "One thousand dollars for the head of Jake Trueblood." "If you are so anxious to have Jake Trueblood's head, why don't go after it yourself?" "Well, I've thought of that." "Unfortunately, I lack your skill with weapons of slaughter." "Avatar... now, I'm going to get you back to San Francisco and out of danger just as quickly as I can." "In the meantime, you forget your theories, and you let Jake Trueblood alone." "I came to warn you." "Warn me of what?" "My companion is deathly jealous of Jake's reputation as a gunfighter." "Now, if you value his life, or yours, I beg of you, don't wait for Paladin to shoot first." "Jake!" " Jake, wake up." "Wake up." " What is it?" "Jake, you have to kill Paladin." "Paladin?" "Well, what's he doing?" "Jake?" "I don't know what this is all about." "Pina, says I got to kill you, I got to kill you." "No." "No, I can't kill a man." "Unless I got a good reason first." "Thank you, Jake." "Good night and thank you, I'll be gone by the morning." "I admire your forbearance." "Well, don't push it much further." "It's a pity, really." "He surely couldn't have had much longer to live." "Now, I suppose even a creature like that has an instinct for wanting to cheat the Devil as long as possible." "You're standing there feeling sorry for yourself because Jake is still alive?" "You don't feel that one man's life is a small price to pay for the advancement of human knowledge?" "What about your own life?" "My own included." "It didn't occur to you that Jake or Pena might have killed me?" "But of course." "Wouldn't that have left you without a head?" "Not at all." "You mean my head?" "You know, you're almost as good a specimen as Jake himself." "In fact, I might have saved myself this whole journey, if I could have found someone in San Francisco to kill you." "Well, what are you looking at?" "What are you gonna do with that?" "I am going to conduct a little scientific experiment to enlarge the frontiers of human knowledge." "The temporal region is toward the rear." "Now, look at that." "That look familiar?" "If ever a man's head bore the mark of Cain, it's yours." "Now what does that do to your precise theory?" "I had no intention of going back empty-handed." "Now." "I don't want to damage the skull." "You're certainly right about one thing." "No skill at all with weapons of slaughter." "That gun isn't even cocked." "Drew on you, huh?" "Believe in all that stuff?" "No." "But I suppose Professor Lombroso might like to have these as a souvenir of his favorite pupil." "Say, do you have to send him the one of Jake?" "Let people think he's dead." "Let them leave us alone here." "Yeah." ""Have Gun Will Travel"" "Reads the card of a man" "A knight without armor in a savage land" "His fast gun for hire" "Heeds the calling wind" "A soldier of fortune" "Is the man called Paladin" "Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam?" "Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home"