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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.

“If the boys,” said Bud, “ain’t satisfied with me, I’m willing to step out. They’re buckin’ against my way of handlin’ ’em. And ‘specially because I concludes to hit the brush while Sam Kinney is ridin’ the line. I saves ’em from bein’ shot or sent up on a state contract, and they up and says I’m no good.”

“It ain’t so much that,” explained Cactus, “as it is they’re plum locoed about Piggy. They want them whiskers and that nose of his to split the wind at the head of the column.”

“There’s somethin’ mighty seldom about Piggy,” declared Bud, musingly. “I never yet see anything on the hoof that he exactly grades up with. He can shore holler a plenty and he straddles a hoss from where you laid the chunk. But he ain’t never been smoked yet. You know, Cactus, we ain’t had a row since he’s been with us. Piggy’s all right for skearin’ the greaser kids and layin’ waste a cross-roads store. I reckon he’s the finest canned oyster buccaneer and cheese pirate that ever was, but how’s his appetite for fightin’? I’ve knowed some citizens you’d think was starvin’ for trouble get a bad case of dyspepsy the first dose of lead they had to take.”

“He talks all spraddled out,” said Cactus, “’bout the rookuses he’s been in. He claims to have saw the elephant and hearn the owl.”

“I know,” replied Bud, using the cowpuncher’s expressive phrase of skepticism, “but it sounds to me!”

This conversation was held one night in camp while the other members of the band–eight in number–were sprawling around the fire, lingering over their supper. When Bud and Cactus ceased talking they heard Piggy’s formidable voice holding forth to the others as usual while he was engaged in checking, though never satisfying, his ravening appetite.

“Wat’s de use,” he was saying, “of chasin’ little red cowses and hosses ’round for t’ousands of miles? Dere ain’t nuttin’ in it. Gallopin’ t’rough dese bushes and briers, and gettin’ a t’irst dat a brewery couldn’t put out, and missin’ meals! Say! You know what I’d do if I was main finger of dis bunch? I’d stick up a train. I’d blow de express car and make hard dollars where you guys get wind. Youse makes me tired. Dis sook-cow kind of cheap sport gives me a pain.”

Later on, a deputation waited on Bud. They stood on one leg, chewed mesquit twigs and circumlocuted, for they hated to hurt his feelings. Bud foresaw their business, and made it easy for them. Bigger risks and larger profits was what they wanted.

The suggestion of Piggy’s about holding up a train had fired their imagination and increased their admiration for the dash and boldness of the instigator. They were such simple, artless, and custom-bound bush-rangers that they had never before thought of extending their habits beyond the running off of live-stock and the shooting of such of their acquaintances as ventured to interfere.