Hiram Priest is slender and gaunt.  He dresses in finery:  suit and waistcoat, watch, fob, and top hat.  His complexion is quite pale, some would even say ashen, but it matches his white hair nicely.  He has cunning gray eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles.  He rarely smiles;  1) because he doesn't have much warmth or empathy, and 2) because even HE is aware of his off-putting, tobacco stained teeth.  Other than looking aged, he is otherwise in good health.

Priest is very smart.  He always seems to be weighing odds, judging character, or planning his next move, just as a Chess Master would.  He appraises, always with a plug of tobacco nestled against his left cheek.  He can recite legal arguments about cases he learned in Law School -- and do it fluently.  Yet, most times he's laconic and never one who could be described as blabby.

Politician with plans.

He shrewdly saved his money over time, and at the outset of his story here, can self-finance.   His goal is to work his way into the fabric of community leadership and perhaps be appointed or elected as judge.

Hiram is a civic leader (if a crooked one) having been elected as Mayor of Wagon Mound, up in Dakota territory.  Later, he was appointed a Territorial Judge.  Often, he could be seen bearing witness, after intoning, "By the powers invested in me by Statute 83d and all other statues thereto appertatum..." standing solemnly, cheeks loaded with chaw and his hands gripping his lapels, while the condemned fell through a gallows' trapdoor.

He is an "associate" of Judge Hiram Priest Esq.   They have both prospered from other-than-legal schemes.