Bill Donnelly, 1884

[...] Bill Donnelly Expects to See Those Who Survive Hanged Some Day.

[...] When the 14th of next February comes four years will have passed since that awful night when four people in the old Donnelly homestead were butchered, and since Bill Donnelly would have been killed but that his brother answered the treacherous call of the assassins at the door, and received the fatal bullet intended for Bill. Years of social outlawry, the closest possible call to a sudden and awful death, a consuming thirst for vengeance against the man who almost annihilated his family, and four years' patient waiting the turn of events, have made no change in him. He is still in appearance the same Bill Donnelly he has been since the public knew him. The pale clear-cut features still look out from a back-ground of dark curly hair reaching almost to the wearer's shoulders. The lips are as firm set and the eyes as keen as ever, while the brown moustache and goatee have not changed a hair. It is not simply a face, it is a mobile mask, which expresses just what the wearer desires to have known and no more. Fear, anger, dismay, Bill Donnelly may feel, but his face betrays nothing of them.

"Do you still have any hope of convicting the murderers of your family?"

The answer was emphatic. "You bet I have." Then, after a pause. "There were too many in that conspiracy to keep it quiet always. I can afford to wait. I've waited four years now, and I can wait twenty more. [...]