re not members of the Phalanx, and trusted
that their crimes would not be charged against him. But the success of
Walker lay greatly in his stern discipline. He tried the men, and they
confessed to their guilt. One got away; and, as it might appear that
Walker had connived at his escape, to the second man was shown no
mercy. When one reads how severe was Walker in his punishments, and
how frequently the death penalty was invoked by him against his own
few followers, the wonder grows that these men, as independent and as
unaccustomed to restraint as were those who first joined him, submitted
to his leadership. One can explain it only by the personal quality of
Walker himself.

Among these reckless, fearless outlaws, who, despising their allies,
believed and proved that with his rifle one American could account for a
dozen Nicaraguans, Walker was the one man who did not boast or drink or
gamble, who did not even swear, who never looked at a woman, and who, in
money matters, was scrupulously honest and unself-seeking. In a fight,
his followers knew that for them he would risk being shot just as
unconcernedly as to maintain his authority he would shoot one of them.

Treachery, cowardice, looting, any indignity to women, he punished with
death; but to the wounded, either of his own or of the enemy's forces,
he was as gentle as a nursing sister and the brave and able he rewarded
with instant promotion and higher pay. In no one trait was he a
demagogue. One can find no effort on his part to ingratiate himself with
his men. Among the officers of his staff there were no favorites. He
messed alone, and at all times kept to himself. He spoke little, and
then with utter lack of self-consciousness. In the face of injustice,
perjury, or physical danger, he was always calm, firm, dispassionate.
But it is said that on those infrequent occasions when his anger
asserted itself, the steady steel-gray eyes flashed so menacingly that
those who faced them would as soon look down the barrel of his Colt.

The impression one gets of him gathered from his recorded acts, from his
own writings, from the writings of those who fought with him, is of a
silent, student-like young man believing religiously in his "star of
destiny"; but, in all matters that did not concern himself, possessed of
a grim sense of fun. The sayings of his men that in his history of the
war he records, show a distinct appreciation of the Bret Harte school of
humor. As, for