The latter,
always fastidious, wore a blue-striped vest, without a coat to obscure
it, and about his throat was knotted a flaming vermilion necktie,
fastened in place with a diamond stickpin--obviously the spoil of some
recent robbery. Glendin, watching, ground his teeth.
McNamara followed. He had been a squatter, but his family had died of a
fever, and McNamara's mind had been unsettled ever since; whisky had
finished the work of sending him on the downward path with Conklin's
little crew of desperadoes. Men shrank from facing those too-bright,
wandering eyes, yet it was from pity almost as much as horror.
Finally came Ufert. He was merely a round-faced boy of nineteen, proud
of the distinguished bad company he kept. He was that weak-minded type
which is only strong when it becomes wholly evil. With a different
leadership he would have become simply a tobacco-chewing hanger-on at
cross-roads saloons and general merchandise stores. As it was, feeling
dignified by the brotherhood of crime into which he had been admitted as
a full member, and eager to prove his qualifications, he was as
dangerous as any member of the crew.
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