For that legend was growing explosively, Rumor was insisting he received a price of $600 a man. (The best evidence is that he received a monthly wage of about $125, very good money in an era when top hands worked for $30 and found.) Rumor had it he slipped two small rocks under each victim's head as a sort of trademark. (A detailed search of old coroner's reports fails to substantiate this in the slightest.)

One thing was certain -- his method was effective, so effective that after a time even the warning notices were often unnecessary. The mere fact that the tall figure with the rifle and field glasses had been seen riding that way was enough to frighten three rustling homesteaders out of the Upper Laramie country in a single week.

``My reputation's my stock in trade,'' Tom mentioned more than once. He evidently couldn't foresee that it might be his downfall in the end.

He had made himself the personification of the Devil to the homesteaders. But to the cattlemen who had been facing bankruptcy from rustling losses and to the cowboys who had been faced with lay-offs a few years earlier, he was becoming a vastly different type of legendary figure. Such ranchers as Coble and Clay and the Bosler brothers carried him on their books as a cowhand even while he was receiving a much larger salary from parties unknown. He made their spreads his headquarters, and he helped out in their roundups.