If, instead of telling a true story, we were inventing a romance, we should certainly guard ourselves against introducing into our narrative persons like the one we have to deal with now; unhappily, we are constrained to follow the line ready traced before us, and depict our characters as they are, as they existed, and as the majority still exist. A few years before the period at which the first part of our story begins, a rumour, at first dull, but which soon attained a certain degree of consistency and a great notoriety in the vast deserts of Texas, arose almost suddenly, icing with fear the Indios Bravos, and the adventurers of every description who continually wander about these vast solitudes. It was stated that a man, apparently white, had been for some time on the desert, pursuing the Redskins, against whom he seemed to have declared an obstinate war. Acts of horrible cruelty and extraordinary boldness were narrated about this man, who was said to be always alone; wherever he met Indians, no matter their number, he attacked them; those who fell into his power were scalped, and their hearts torn out, and in order that it might be known that they had fallen under his blows, he made on their stomach a wide incision, in the shape of a cross. At times this implacable enemy of the red race glided into their villages, fired them during the night, when all were asleep, and then he made a frightful butchery, killing all who came in his way; women, children, and old men, he made no exception. This gloomy redresser of wrongs, however, did not merely pursue Indians with his implacable hatred--half-breeds, smugglers, pirates, in a word, all the bold border ruffians accustomed to live at the expense of society had a rude account to settle with him; but the latter he did not scalp, but merely contented himself with fastening them securely to trees, where he condemned them to die of hunger, and become the prey of wild beasts.