He was one of the excrescences of that unsettled period, an unhappy evil—­an inevitable evil, I might almost say, as the Mexican horse-thieves and the prairie fires and the Indian outbreaks were inevitable, as our fathers who built this beautiful city knew to their cost.  The same chance that was given to them to make a home for themselves in the wilderness, to help others to make their homes, to assist the civilization and progress not only of this city, but of the whole Lone Star State, was given to him, and he refused it, and blocked the way of others, and kept back the march of progress, until to-day, civilization, which has waxed great and strong—­not on account of him, remember, but in spite of him—­sweeps him out of its way, and crushes him and his fellows.”

The young District Attorney allowed his arm to drop, and turned to the jury, leaning easily with his bent knuckles on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in his pleasant tones of every-day politeness, “the ‘bad man’ has become an unknown quantity in Zepata City and in the State of Texas.  It lies with you to see that he remains so.  He went out of existence with the blanket Indian and the buffalo.  He is dead, and he must not be resurrected.  He was a picturesque evil of those early days, but civilization has no use for him, and it has killed him, as the railroads and the barb-wire fence have killed the cowboy.  He does not belong here; he does not fit in; he is not wanted.  We want men who can breed good cattle, who can build manufactories and open banks; storekeepers who can undersell those of other cities; and professional men who know their business.  We do not want desperadoes and ‘bad men’ and faro-dealers and men who are quick on the trigger.  A foolish and morbid publicity has cloaked men of this class with a notoriety which cheap and pernicious literature has greatly helped to disseminate.  They have been made romantic when they were brutal, brave when they were foolhardy, heroes when they were only bullies and blackguards.  This man, Abe Barrow, the prisoner at the bar, belongs to that class.  He enjoys and has enjoyed a reputation as a ‘bad man,’ a desperate and brutal ruffian.  Free him to-day, and you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and you encourage others to like evil.  Let him go, and he will walk the streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch him—­afraid, gentlemen—­and children and women will point after him as the man who has sent nine others into eternity, and who yet walks the streets a free man.  And he will become, in the eyes of the young and the weak, a hero and a god.  This is unfortunate, but it is true.

“Now, gentlemen, we want to keep the streets of this city so safe that a woman can walk them at midnight without fear of insult, and a man can express his opinion on the corner without being shot in the back for doing so.”

The District Attorney turned from the jury with a bow, and faced Judge Truax.