The pictures he conjured up were colorful.
A unique and an engaging person he proved to be; an odd compound of gentleness and acerbity, of kindliness and rancor; a quiet, guileless, stubborn, violent old man-at-arms, who would not be interrupted while he was eating.

He was both scornful and contemptuous of evildoers.

All needed killing.
"Hard luck, I call it, for a budding desperado to wreck a career of promise the way that wretched fellow did," Gray told him with a laugh.
"Out of all the men in Texas, to pick you--" "Oh, he ain't a bud! He's quite a killer." "Indeed ?" "He kills Mexicans and niggers and folks without guns, mostly.

Low-down stuff! He's got three or four, I believe.

I never could see why the Nelsons kep' him." There was a brief silence.