The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western DesperadoHough, Emerson
History
The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
Hough, Emerson
Crime -- West (U.S.); Criminals -- West (U.S.); Outlaws; West (U.S.) -- History
"In the fall of the year 1801 or 1802, a company consisting of two
men and three women arrived in Lincoln county, Ky., and encamped
about a mile from the present town of Stanford. The appearance of
the individuals composing this party was wild and rude in the
extreme. The one who seemed to be the leader of the band was above
the ordinary stature of men. His frame was bony and muscular, his
breast broad, his limbs gigantic. His clothing was uncouth and
shabby, his exterior weather-beaten and dirty, indicating continual
exposure to the elements, and designating him as one who dwelt far
from the habitations of men, and mingled not in the courtesies of
civilized life. His countenance was bold and ferocious, and
exceedingly repulsive, from its strongly marked expression of
villainy. His face, which was larger than ordinary, exhibited the
lines of ungovernable passion, and the complexion announced that
the ordinary feelings of the human breast were in him
extinguished. Instead of the healthy hue which indicates the social
emotions, there was a livid, unnatural redness, resembling that of
a dried and lifeless skin. His eye was fearless and steady, but it
was also artful and audacious, glaring upon the beholder with an
unpleasant fixedness and brilliancy, like that of a ravenous animal
gloating on its prey. He wore no covering on his head, and the
natural protection of thick, coarse hair, of a fiery redness,
uncombed and matted, gave evidence of long exposure to the rudest
visitations of the sunbeam and the tempest. He was armed with a
rifle, and a broad leathern belt, drawn closely around his waist,
supported a knife and a tomahawk. He seemed, in short, an outlaw,
destitute of all the nobler sympathies of human nature, and
prepared at all points of assault or defense. The other man was
smaller in size than him who lead the party, but similarly armed,
having the same suspicious exterior, and a countenance equally
fierce and sinister. The females were coarse and wretchedly
attired.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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