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Morrow's face wore none of the active malignancy that stamps the features of those uncontrolled desperadoes who kill in a flare of passion; rather it seemed that the urge to kill was always with him, had been born with him, his face drawn and over-lengthened from the inner effort to render his homicidal tendencies submissive to his brain, not through desire for regeneration, for he had none, but as a mere matter of expediency.
Eight hundred ruffians, collected from the collieries at Kingswood and from Cock-road, the haunt of every species of desperadoes; such a gang as this, well paid and well filled with ale, and knowing that, do what they would, they should be protected by the authorities, was a sort of force that was not to be trifled with.
"You are an American cruiser, I presume?" continued Captain Staunton, looking first at the beautifully kept decks, and then more doubtfully at the gang of desperadoes who crowded round. "Sorter," briefly replied the man who had called himself Johnson; and the reply seemed for some reason to mightily tickle his crew, most of whom burst into a hearty guffaw.
Perhaps before to-morrow night it might be well to bring some of those loose rocks here and build a barricade. I wish I had thought of that before." The captain sat and listened and thought. His listening brought him no return, and his thinking brought him too much. The most mournful ideas of what might happen if more than two or three of the desperadoes attacked the place crowded into his mind.
So intent were his fellow-citizens on annoying this inoffensive man, that soon after he was mobbed in Maine-street by the young desperadoes I have referred to, who, from their determined opposition to intermixed marriages, were known in the place as "anti-amalgamists."
Almost instantly a Negro's woolly head shot up before him, and, ere he had time to open his mouth, the deck was overwhelmed on every side by a hundred black or yellow desperadoes, half naked, hideous, and fearsome. Tartarin knew who these pirates were "they," of course, the celebrated "they" who had too often been hunted after by him in the by-ways of Tarascon.
And when the other two members of the posse came to take part in the fight, there was only one train-robber living. They found him breathing his last where he had crept away among the cliffs. But killing desperadoes would not eradicate the reign of lawlessness unless a man slew the entire pack; and John Slaughter had no intention of instituting a St. Bartholomew's eve in Cochise County.
Wherever there are hordes of hungry, adventurous men, there will be desperadoes. In spite of Begbie's justice, robberies occurred on the road and not a few murders. The time going in and out varied; but the journey could be made in five days and was often made in four. The building of the Cariboo Road had an important influence on the camp that its builders could not foresee.
McGirt, we're ready to help you any way we can," continued Max, once the three young desperadoes had departed to seek new pastures for exploiting their evil natures; "where could we carry these packages you've got done up? And while we're on our way, perhaps you could get the rest of your stock ready. We'll fetch back the empty baskets."
Captain Horn knew a great deal about the Rackbirds. They were a band of desperadoes, many of them outlaws and criminals. They had all come down from the isthmus, to which they had been attracted by the great canal works, and after committing various outrages and crimes, they had managed to get away without being shot or hung.
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