“I swear!” he broke out in one of the half-epileptic fits of choler which sometimes marked him—he was only a pirate of old reborn in the blood of the Civil War—“I swear, some one’s got to suffer for some of this! Last night four Indians rode right into our camp and drove off six horses, and us needing every head we’ve got. You all hear me, now! I swear I’m going to shoot the first Indian I see north of the Red, I don’t give a cuss what sort it is. We’ve gone palavering along and letting a lot of longhorns shoot us up, and then we have the Chickasaws run circles around us.” At first no one made reply, though a wild band they made, such as no other land, no other conditions, could have produced. “Do you mean that, Sim?” asked one of them presently. “You know damned well I do,” rejoined the leader. “You needn’t put it past me.” To Rudabaugh, subterranean politician, soldier of fortune and renegade, no title or description could more nicely have been fitted than the one word “ruffian.” Of nondescript figure, perhaps of middle height, his body as well as his face showed dissipation written indelibly even for his age of forty-odd. His hair was dark, not yet much thinned, and had a reddish cast as though reflected from the deep floridity of his complexion. His eyes also were hazel to the point of redness, smudged and flecked in the pupils and evil to look at. His lips, thick and astonishingly red, carried out the misprized plan of his other features; he was coarse, common. Yet the inordinate personal conceit, confidence, vanity of the man had mirror in his clothing. Even on the trail he might have been made up for the stage villain, with the high boots, the velvet coat, the gaudy tie—in a borderland where tie or collar was not customary. Excess as much as daring was stamped on him, flamboyance, aberration; yet even at middle age he by no means had outgrown his earlier faith in his own invincibility with women; nor had his other activities put woman from his mind. His camp talk, not to be hinted, always gave proof of that. To his unquestionable mental boldness, his daring imagination in material matters, Rudabaugh added the callous and ruthless indifference to the rights or sufferings of others which often secures precedence in a band of criminals. The bad eminence of Rudabaugh was conceded as of merit.