These latter would be called upon to ride swiftly and far when
the word came.
CHAPTER XVII
Mr. Trendley Assumes Added Importance
That the rustlers were working under a well organized system was
evident. That they were directed by a master of the game was
ceaselessly beaten into the consciousness of the Association by the
diversity, dash and success of their raids. No one, save the three men
whom they had destroyed, had ever seen them. But, like Tamale Jose,
they had raided once too often.
Mr. Trendley, more familiarly known to men as "Slippery," was the
possessor of a biased conscience, if any at all. Tall, gaunt and
weather-beaten and with coal-black eyes set deep beneath hairless
eyebrows, he was sinister and forbidding. Into his forty-five years of
existence he had crowded a century of experience, and unsavory rumors
about him existed in all parts of the great West. From Canada to
Mexico and from Sacramento to Westport his name stood for brigandage.
His operations had been conducted with such consummate cleverness that
in all the accusations there was lacking proof.
Only once had he erred, and then in the spirit of pure deviltry and in the
days of youthful folly, and his mistake was a written note. He was even
thought by some to have been concerned in the Mountain Meadow
Massacre; others thought him to have been the leader of the band of
outlaws that had plundered along the Santa Fe Trail in the late `60's.
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