Meanwhile, over in one corner, the men gathered around a Mexican from a nearby town who was running a gambling game with the cards, while his partner dispensed bottles of the agave brandy. Soon the inevitable vicious altercation would arise. To be sure it was limited to a violent flood of profanity and only reputation and dignity were injured, but the women shrank away while drunken cries filled the air. A few cool heads interfered before any irreparable damage was done, but it was not always thus, as a rude cross or two in the neighborhood of the pueblo, marking a place where a soul had come to a violent end, mutely attest.