Of Rudabaugh’s earlier and possibly criminal record there was little known. Only a very few in his newly chosen home knew he had been border outlaw for many a year in a time when border outlaws really existed. His field lay in the shady confines of a circle comprising parts of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and the unknown Indian Nations, always refuge for bad men and those restive under the law. Leader of an organized band of herd cutters on the Missouri-Arkansas border, on the very earliest cattle drives, before the railroads came, he had of late got visions of wider things. He had followed south, back-trailing, to the origin of the cows that first dribbled north. Credit him with conservative business sense; he had caught scent of profits to come in cows. Working from these beginnings, Rudabaugh later had planned the most extensive range rieving ever known. No better nor worse than many a later man of large instincts and few principles who operated in trail beef, he had found in politics the most powerful agency possible in banditry. Once established as the covert boss of a wide state machine, he did not lack followers. If his activities and those of his like had much to do with the sudden stiffening and increase of the border constabulary of the Texas Rangers, his shrewd notion of tremendous effects on Texas of any valid railroad market also had weight in certain widespread Texas circles. No doubt pique, baffled vanity, had much to do with the presence of Rudabaugh’s gang this far north; but as he had said just now, persistence was a characteristic of the man. One thing he did not share with any man. The image of Taisie Lockhart was in his blood. Whether he planned to rob her and flout her, to rob her and humble her, to rob her and then try to impress her with some large gesture of generosity, who could tell of a mind so insanely blurred and vague? At least, he remained resolved to follow the Del Sol herd and the Del Sol owner to the last mile of the trail unless sooner satisfied in one or more purposes of his own. Another quality of leadership—he could keep his own counsel. “Well,” Rudabaugh vouchsafed at last, helping himself again to food at the fire, “they’ve only postponed things. So far, they’ve got two of us, and one of them Sam Barclay, my office deputy, and as good a man as I had.” “Good on the books, maybe,” volunteered a voice, “but no good as a cowman. The Del Sol men rid it through and gathered, like enough, every cow except what landed on top of Sam. And they never dug a spade of dirt to cover him!” he added virtuously. “No way to treat a man. Why, them people is outlaws! And I’ll bet they’re crowing now over shooting Bentley!”