By this time everybody had discovered that Overton was a great scoundrel, but as he was useful, the English company from Canada employed him, paying him very high wages.  But his employers having discovered that he was almost always tipsy, and not at all backward in appropriating to himself that to which he had no right, dismissed him from their service, and Overton returned to his former life.  By-and-bye, some Yankees made him proposals, which he accepted; what was the nature of them no one can exactly say, but everybody may well fancy, knowing that nothing is considered more praiseworthy than cheating the Indians in their transactions with them, through the agency of some rascally interpreter, who, of course, receives his tantum quantum of the profits of his treachery.  For some time the employers and employed agreed amazingly well, and as nothing is cheaper than military titles in the United States, the half-breed became Colonel Overton, with boots and spurs, a laced coat, and a long sword.  Cunning as were the Yankees, Overton was still more so; cheating them as he had cheated the Indians.  The holy alliance was broken up; he then retired to the mountains, protected by the Mexican government, and commenced a system of general depredation, which for some time proved successful.  His most ordinary method was to preside over a barter betwixt the savages and the traders.  When both parties had agreed, they were of course in good humour, and drank freely.  Now was the time for the Colonel.  To the Indians he would affirm that the traders only waited till they were asleep, to butcher them and take back their goods.  The same story was told to the traders, and a fight ensued, the more terrible as the whole party was more or less tipsy.  Then, with some rogues in his own employ, the Colonel, under the pretext of making all safe, would load the mules with the furs and goods, proceed to Santa Fe, and dispose of his booty for one-third of its value.  None cared how it had been obtained; it was cheap, consequently it was welcome.

His open robberies and tricks of this description were so numerous that Overton became the terror of the mountains.  The savages swore that they would scalp him; the Canadians vowed that they would make him dance to death; the English declared that they would hang him; and the Yankees, they would put him to Indian torture.  The Mexicans, not being able any more to protect their favourite, put a price upon his head.  Under these circumstances, Overton took an aversion to society, concealed himself, and during two years nothing was heard of him, when, one day, as a party of Comanches and Tonquewas were returning from some expedition, they perceived a man on horseback.  They knew him to be Overton, and gave chase immediately.