Prowling about, he found blankets, a saddle and bridle with which he caparisoned his steed.Again mounting, he rode swiftly away, singing a loud and tuneless song.
Bud King's band of desperadoes, outlaws and horse and cattle thieves were in camp at a secluded spot on the bank of the Frio.Their depredations in the Rio Grande country, while no bolder than usual, had been advertised more extensively, and Captain Kinney's company of rangers had been ordered down to look after them.Consequently, Bud King, who was a wise general, instead of cutting out a hot trail for the upholders of the law, as his men wished to do, retired for the time to the prickly fastnesses of the Frio valley.
Though the move was a prudent one, and not incompatible with Bud's well-known courage, it raised dissension among the members of the band.In fact, while they thus lay ingloriously /perdu/ in the brush, the question of Bud King's fitness for the leadership was argued, with closed doors, as it were, by his followers.Never before had Bud's skill or efficiency been brought to criticism; but his glory was wandering (and such is glory's fate) in the light of a newer star.The sentiment of the band was crystallizing into the opinion that Black Eagle could lead them with more lustre, profit, and distinction.
This Black Eagle--sub-titled the "Terror of the Border"--had been a member of the gang about three months.
One night while they were in camp on the San Miguel water-hole a solitary horseman on the regulation fiery steed dashed in among them.
The newcomer was of a portentous and devastating aspect.A beak-like nose with a predatory curve projected above a mass of bristling, blue-
black whiskers.His eye was cavernous and fierce.He was spurred, sombreroed, booted, garnished with revolvers, abundantly drunk, and very much unafraid.Few people in the country drained by the Rio Bravo would have cared thus to invade alone the camp of Bud King.But this fell bird swooped fearlessly upon them and demanded to be fed.
Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited.Even if your enemy pass your way you must feed him before you shoot him.You must empty your larder into him before you empty your lead.So the stranger of undeclared intentions was set down to a mighty feast.
A talkative bird he was, full of most marvellous loud tales and exploits, and speaking a language at times obscure but never colourless.He was a new sensation to Bud King's men, who rarely encountered new types.They hung, delighted, upon his vainglorious boasting, the spicy strangeness of his lingo, his contemptuous familiarity with life, the world, and remote places, and the extravagant frankness with which he conveyed his sentiments.
To their guest the band of outlaws seemed to be nothing more than a congregation of country bumpkins whom he was "stringing for grub" just as he would have told his stories at the back door of a farmhouse to wheedle a meal.And, indeed, his ignorance was not without excuse, for the "bad man" of the Southwest does not run to extremes.Those brigands might justly have been taken for a little party of peaceable rustics assembled for a fish-fry or pecan gathering.Gentle of manner, slouching of gait, soft-voiced, unpicturesquely clothed; not one of them presented to the eye any witness of the desperate records they had earned.
For two days the glittering stranger within the camp was feasted.
Then, by common consent, he was invited to become a member of the band.He consented, presenting for enrollment the prodigious name of "Captain Montressor." This name was immediately overruled by the band, and "Piggy" substituted as a compliment to the awful and insatiate appetite of its owner.
Thus did the Texas border receive the most spectacular brigand that ever rode its chaparral.
For the next three months Bud King conducted business as usual, escaping encounters with law officers and being content with reasonable profits.The band ran off some very good companies of horses from the ranges, and a few bunches of fine cattle which they got safely across the Rio Grande and disposed of to fair advantage.
Often the band would ride into the little villages and Mexican settlements, terrorizing the inhabitants and plundering for the provisions and ammunition they needed.It was during these bloodless raids that Piggy's ferocious aspect and frightful voice gained him a renown more widespread and glorious than those other gentle-voiced and sad-faced desperadoes could have acquired in a lifetime.
The Mexicans, most apt in nomenclature, first called him The Black Eagle, and used to frighten the babes by threatening them with tales of the dreadful robber who carried off little children in his great beak.Soon the name extended, and Black Eagle, the Terror of the Border, became a recognized factor in exaggerated newspaper reports and ranch gossip.
The country from the Nueces to the Rio Grande was a wild but fertile stretch, given over to the sheep and cattle ranches.Range was free;
the inhabitants were few; the law was mainly a letter, and the pirates met with little opposition until the flaunting and garish Piggy gave the band undue advertisement.Then McKinney's ranger company headed for those precincts, and Bud King knew that it meant grim and sudden war or else temporary retirement.Regarding the risk to be unnecessary, he drew off his band to an almost inaccessible spot on the bank of the Frio.Wherefore, as has been said, dissatisfaction arose among the members, and impeachment proceedings against Bud were premeditated, with Black Eagle in high favour for the succession.Bud King was not unaware of the sentiment, and he called aside Cactus Taylor, his trusted lieutenant, to discuss it.
