, accustomed to ride
into town and to take charge of things when he pleased. He had many
thefts and robberies to his credit, and not a few murders. His finish
was one not infrequent in that country. The citizens got wind of his
coming one day, just before he rode into Round Rock for a little raid.
The city marshal and several others opened fire on Bass and his party,
and killed them to a man.

It was of such stuff as this that most of the bad men and indeed many of
the peace officers were composed, along a wide frontier in the early
troublous days following the civil war, when all the border was a
seething mass of armed men for whom the law had as yet gained no
meaning. To tell the story of more individuals would be to depart from
the purpose of this work. Were these men wrong, and were they wholly
and unreservedly bad? Ignorance and bigotry will be the first to give
the answer, the first to apply to them the standards of these later
days.

Chapter XX

Modern Bad Men--_Murder and Robbery as a Profession_--_The School of
Guerrilla Warfare_--_Butcher Quantrell; the James Brothers; the Younger
Brothers_.

Outlawry of the early border, in days before any pretense at
establishment of a system of law and government, and before the holding
of property had assumed any very stable form, may have retained a
certain glamour of romance. The loose gold of the mountains, the loose
cattle of the plains, before society had fallen into any strict way of
living, and while plenty seemed to exist for any and all, made a
temptation easily accepted and easily excused. The ruffians of those
early days had a largeness in their methods which gives some of them at
least a color of interest. If any excuse may be offered for lawlessness,
any palliation for acts committed without countenance of the law, that
excuse and palliation may be pleaded for these men if for any. But for
the man who is bad and mean as well, who kills for gain, and who adds
cruelty and cunning to his acts instead of boldness and courage, little
can be said. Such characters afford us horror, but it is horror
unmingled with any manner of admiration.

Yet, if we reconcile ourselves to tarry a moment with the cheap and
gruesome, the brutal and ignorant side of mere crime, we shall be
obliged to take into consideration some of the bloodiest characters ever
known in our history; who operated well within the day of established
law; who made a trade of robbery, and who