of the frontier, and men talked of him with an awe which
they scarcely exhibited toward any symbol of virtue and sobriety. He
said things and he did things which even a tolerant observer, hardened
to the aspect of life's seamy side, might have felt impelled to call
depraved, and yet Bill Jones himself was not depraved. He was, like
the community in which he lived, "free an' easy." Morality meant no
more to him than grammar. He outraged the one as he outraged the
other, without malice and without any sense of fundamental difference
between himself and those who preferred to do neither.

The air was full of tales of his extraordinary doings, for he was a
fighter with pistols and with fists and had an ability as a "butter"
which was all his own and which he used with deadly effect. What his
history had been was a secret which he illuminated only fitfully. It
was rumored that he had been born in Ireland of rather good stock, and
in the course of an argument with an uncle of his with whom he lived
had knocked the uncle down. Whether he had killed him the rumors
failed to tell, but the fact that Bill Jones had found it necessary
"to dust" to America, under an assumed name, suggested several things.
Being inclined to violence, he naturally drifted to that part of the
country where violence seemed to be least likely to have serious
consequences. By a comic paradox, he joined the police force of
Bismarck. He casually mentioned the fact one day to Roosevelt,
remarking that he had left the force because he "beat the Mayor over
the head with his gun one day."

"The Mayor, he didn't mind it," he added, "but the Superintendent of
Police guessed I'd better resign."

He was a striking-looking creature, a man who could turn dreams into
nightmares, merely by his presence in them. He was rather short of
stature, but stocky and powerfully built, with a tremendous chest and
long, apelike arms, hung on a giant's shoulders. The neck was a
brute's, and the square protruding jaw was in keeping with it. His
lips were thin, his nose was hooked like a pirate's, and his keen
black eyes gleamed from under the bushy black eyebrows like a
grizzly's from a cave. He was not a thing of beauty, but, at the back
of his unflinching gaze, humor in some spritely and satanic shape was
always disporting itself, and there was, as Lincoln Lang described it,
"a certain built-in look of drollery in his face," which made one
forget its hardness.

He was feared