The fact was that Belle was as cunning as she was unscrupulous. She distributed money and provisions amongst the poor and worthless not because she had any pity for them, but because it was the cheapest way of obtaining the support at critical moments of a large portion of the population. Every gaolbird looked up to Belle as a subject does to a Sovereign, and they respected her all the more when they knew that she admitted to membership of her gang only the best experts in the criminal line.
At least four pitched battles were fought between the outlaws and the Government soldiers before the final encounter. Belle seemed to bear a charmed life. She always headed her colleagues and took the greatest risks, and when she emerged without a scratch from the fiercest encounters her ignorant and superstitious followers began to believe that she was not mortal. They had often seen her ride at a troop of armed soldiers and coolly pick off the officers, while all the time a perfect hail of bullets had sung around her fair head without touching her.
Whenever the battle was going against the outlaws it was Belle who revived their drooping courage, and she twice turned defeat into victory by her marvellous shooting. The outwitted and beaten commanders were compelled to send for reinforcements, and, so variable is human nature, when a hundred weary and dust-strained troopers entered Austin, the town they had come to save, they were jeered at by the ungrateful inhabitants, who had learnt that in a pitched battle with Belle Star's outlaws the soldiers had been worsted.
Belle's end was fittingly dramatic. She was celebrating a run of success against banks and shops with a feast when news came that two hundred and fifty soldiers under the command of a major were advancing to storm the fort. Instantly she sprang to her feet and ordered every man to his place.
She was sobered in a moment by the news, which was as unexpected as it was unpleasant; and there were several of her followers who had drunk too much to be of use. In vain did Belle shake and curse them and even implore them to wake up. They could only stagger forward a few paces and collapse. One man, in a fit of drunken hilarity and bravado, began to fire indiscriminately, thereby revealing the hiding-place of the outlaws, and Belle was so enraged that she brained him with her carbine. There was no time to remove the corpse, for the soldiers could be heard approaching now, and Belle, realizing that this time it was going to be a fight to a finish, put herself at the head of her garrison, and prepared to conquer or die.
The outlaws were well entrenched, and had a plentiful supply of ammunition, but they were up against equally desperate men now. At last, seeing that if they remained in the fort those who were not killed outright would be captured, Belle personally led a sortie against the enemy, hoping to escape in the confusion. The men followed her gladly, remembering their previous victories, but most of them were still fuddled by drink, and in the circumstances could not be expected to show to advantage.
Belle was the only one to fight at her best. She displayed amazing courage, time after time heading attacks on the troopers, who were so flustered as to show signs of panic. But the commander rallied them, and as by now the troopers regarded Belle Star as a demon and not as a human being they pressed forward to destroy her without being affected by her sex or age. When things were going against her she collected a few of her followers, and made one last desperate attempt to break through the ring of soldiers, but her luck failed her, and she fell riddled with bullets. It was the death she had always desired.