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Then, for the first time in Triplanetary history, the forces of law and order joined hands with those of piracy and banditry against a common foe. Rods, beams, planes, and stilettoes of unbearable energy the doomed fleet launched, in addition to its main beam of annihilation, and Roger also hurled out into space every weapon at his command.
I'll have them stopped. I'll stop them. And I'll quell, I'll squelch this outburst of banditry of which we have too much. I'll see that my agents hunt down and capture and execute these highwaymen who rob not only rich travellers, but government treasure- convoys, who even rob Imperial Messengers. A pretty state of affairs when my couriers are fair game alike for impostors and robbers.
"Well, no, Villa's in a class by himself. You can't call a man who has controlled a state and who has dictated to presidents, a bandit, can you? He's on too big a scale. Pachuca took up banditry, in a gentlemanly sort of way; at least they say he did; nobody's proved it on him. He was undoubtedly with Villa at one time. He was with him when he stopped here and nabbed our horses.
The fellow had been favored by birth, by breeding, and by education; and although military service in Mexico was little more than a form of banditry, nevertheless Longorio had developed a certain genius for leadership, nor was there any doubt as to his spectacular courage. In some ways he was a second Cid another figure out of Castilian romance.
The mayor was hotly condemned for his failure to remove Chief Sweeney at Gibson's request and the commissioner was hailed as a man whose very name was enough to intimidate criminals and whose presence in the city was enough to keep outlawry and banditry at a minimum. One prominent citizen demanded that the mayor resign and that Gibson be appointed in his place by acclamation.
"My friend here, M'Iver, has come hot-foot to tell me of a rumour that a body of Irish banditry under Alasdair MacDonald, the MacColkitto as we call him, has landed somewhere about Kinlochaline or Knoydart This portends damnably, if I, an elder ordained of this kirk, may say so. We have enough to do with the Athole gentry and others nearer home.
Already several of our young men are reading dime novels and taking lessons in banditry; but the sheriff has stated that this parole will not be considered a precedent. The affair has resulted in some good, however.
In those few months of association with the great Villa, he had met men of various kinds; men who were honestly trying to do something for Mexico; men who were dishonestly trying to do something for themselves; and men who were in such a truly desperate frame of mind after ten years of revolution, banditry, and general upset, that they scarcely knew what they were doing.
Showdown was a rendezvous for that inglorious legion, "The Men Who Can't Come Back," renegades who when below the line worked machine guns for whichever side of the argument promised the more loot. Horse- and cattle-thieves, killers, escaped convicts, came and went ominous birds of passage, the scavengers of war and banditry. The Spider was lean, with legs warped by long years in the saddle.
Our faces and hands were blistered, our throats parched from the hot wind. This was not the West as I had dreamed of it, not the West even of banditry and violent action. It was a desolate, forgotten land, without vegetation save for the dry, crackling grass, without visible tokens of fertility. Drab and gray and empty. Stubborn, resisting land. Heroics wouldn't count for much here.
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