Understand?
He was such a devil back among his people--half a criminal even then--that he was sent out here on a regular monthly remittance.

After that everything went the way of his younger brother.

His father married again, and the second year he became even less cut off.

He was bad--bad from the start, and he went from bad to worse out here.

He gambled, fought, robbed, and became the head of a gang of scoundrels as dangerous as himself.