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CHAPTER I. In the Robber's Nest

Bang! Ping; A bullet whistled by my left ear.

Bang! Ping! Thud! Another whistled by my right ear, clipping a lock of hair, and burying itself in the stalk of the heavy blacksnake whip that I was flourishing aloft at the time.

"Curse you! Won't you stop now?" shouted a voice behind me, to which I had thus far given no heed.

"War, yes, stranger," I drawled, reining up, and wheeling my horse imperturbably, "I reckon I will this time, since you insist on it so emphatically."

Three horsemen approached me. They were rather suspicious than angry, and they had just ridden out of the gate of a lonely farmhouse that I had jogged leisurely but observantly by a few minutes before.

I knew them instantly, though, very fortunately, they didn't know me in the disguise, half clerical and half agricultural, that I then wore. They were three daring Chicago detectives in the disguise of horse-traders -- Hawes, Jewell, and Whittaker by name. They were on the lookout for Jesse and Frank James, the noted trainrobbers and bandits, and had just visited old Mrs. James' farmhouse, in the hope of finding the dreaded outlaws there, and worming themselves into their confidence, with a view to their ultimate capture. Ten thousand dollars reward was the stake. I, William Lawson was on precisely the same "lay." I was, however, wholly on my own hook, didn't admire their mode of procedure, and proposed to go about the dangerous job in my own way.

There you have the whole situation in a nutshell.

"Who and what are you, old man?" inquired Hawes, eyeing my curious rig in a half-amused way, as did his companions; "and why didn't you rein up when we first called out to you?"

"Last question first. I didn't rein up because I'm neither a darky nor a Chinaman, to be ordered about by you or any one else," I replied, with rustic indignation. "And first question last. I am a medical man, of Booneville, on my travels. Now, sir, who in thunder are you? I mean to have the law on you, if there's any in Missouri."

The three detectives burst into a loud laugh.

"Do you know who lives in that house that we've just quitted?" said Hawes, without replying to my question.

"No, I don't; and, moreover, I don't care," said I, still in a huff.

Not the less, however, as I spoke, did I furtively look back at the farmhouse, and notice that the Widow James was peering out of the porch. It pleased me mightily, however, to know that she remarked the altercation we were having in the road.

"Don't be mad," said Hawes, laughing. "Are you riding toward Independence? If you are, we may all take dinner together at the hotel."

I pretended to be reluctantly mollified, and we all four turned our backs on the farmhouse, and walked our horses together down the wild, rocky road. The three detectives talked together, chiefly about horses and horse-trading, as we proceeded. Their object, I saw, was to keep themselves in practice as to the assumption of their fictitious characters by blinding even such-a harmless old lunkhead as I appeared to be.

In fact, their braggadocio in firing their bullets after me as they had done had been in keeping with the same plan. They were anxious to appear in the light of murderers, dare-devil Missourians, at any cost. Nevertheless, I knew them to be really daring men at heart, each one of them an excellent shot, and all conscious of the fact that they were carrying their lives in their hands in the desperate enterprise upon which they had entered.

"I'm sorry we've been unable to see Jess James as yet," said Jewell. "I know he could put us on the track of some good bargains in horseflesh."

"Maybe our pardner, Langman, was in better luck with looking up the James boys," said Whittaker.

"The widow was mighty close-lipped about the boys," said Hawes, whipping up his nag. "I s'pose she's got to be, in view of --"

He suddenly paused, reining up, and half-wheeling his horse.

"Holy smoke!" he exclaimed, altogether thrown off his guard. "Here are Jess and Frank James now, right upon us."

He spoke truly. Two horsemen, followed at a short distance by a third, had followed us noiselessly on the soft, turfy ground at the side of the rocky road, and were now within a few paces of us.

Hawes' astonished exclamation was a dead "give-away" as to the real character of himself and associates, for they had just pretended at the widow's an entire ignorance as to the James boys' personal appearance.

"Throw up your hands, curse you!" thundered Jesse James, with a terrible oath, covering us with his revolver, as we all came to a startled halt.

His companions did the same, while motioning me to one side, as a person too insignificant to be mixed up in the quarrel.

"Throw up your hands," echoed Frank James, in an equally unmistakable tone.

Paralyzed with sudden panic, Jewell and Whittaker obeyed at once.

Hawes, however, saw that the game was up, surrender or no surrender. He resolved to die hard, if die he must.

"Not if I know it!" he growled, whipping out his revolver and firing with the rapidity of thought.

His bullet passed through the neck of the James' confederate -- a train-robber, named Curly Pitts -- who thereupon tumbled from the saddle, after firing his own pistol in the air.

At the same instant Hawes fell dead, with Jesse James' bullet in his heart. Then the defenseless Whittaker went down, shot through and through by simultaneous shots from the robber brothers.

Jewell, at this, suddenly wheeled his horse, and took to flight at a tremendous pace. Then I took up my cue, horrified as I was, and began emptying my revolver at his retreating form, while Frank James spurred after him in hot pursuit.

"Who are you?" said Jesse James, eyeing me with a sphinxlike look, that would be either murderous or agreeable, as the case might be.

"I am a doctor of Booneville," said I, "and, if you are the redoubtable Jesse James, I bring you a message from a dying woman -- Blanche Rideau."

He started, seeming to change countenance even under the iron mask of his hardened aspect.

"Dying -- Blanche Rideau!" he muttered. "However, there's no time for softness now. If you're a doctor, see what you can do for my friend Curly yonder. In the meantime, I must examine the effects of these fellows. I suspected them as detectives all the while they were 'talking horse' to my mother, and the single exclamation of one of 'em a moment ago was enough."

I at once dismounted, and began to examine the hurts of the fallen robber. Jesse James, at the same time, turned over the dead bodies of Hawes and Whittaker, his magnificent sorrel horse meantime following him about with the intelligence of a spaniel.

While we were thus engaged, Frank James came galloping back, cursing bitterly because of Jewell's escape.

"Never mind, Frank," said Jesse. "You should have let me go after the cuss on Dancer there, then we'd have bagged the whole gang. Look! A pretty brace of horse-dealers these!"

He held up some documents that he had just rifled from the dead bodies.

"Correspondence with our worst enemies at Kansas City, by Jupiter!" exclaimed Frank, after snatching and scanning one of the papers. "Thank fortune, we've wiped out the whole five of 'em, with the exception of the one hound that escaped!"

"You bet! or will have done so before another hour's passed," said Jesse, exchanging a meaning glance with him. "How's Curly?" he added, turning to me. "Hello! on his feet again?"

"Why, old chap, you're a trump!" said Frank, meaning to compliment me. "I thought Curly Pitts was done for, sure!"

In the meantime I had succeeded in resuscitating Curly Pitts. He was white and scarcely able to speak, but was even remounting his horse with my assistance.

"No," said I; "the bullet only passed through the muscles and flesh at the back of the neck. I've stanched the flow of blood, but, if the wound can be properly attended to without delay, he will be all right."

"Mother will attend to that," said Jesse James, springing into the saddle. "Come, boys, we can risk an hour's rest at the house before cutting and running on account of this affair. Mister, you'll go with us."

"There's nothing I would like better, Mr. James!" said I, gravely; and I also resumed the saddle.

The way in which I said "Mr. James" caused both brothers to laugh shortly.

So we moved away up the road, leaving the dead men lying where they had fallen, but leading away their horses with us.

Upon reaching the porch of the lonely farmhouse, two silent-looking negro boys came from the direction of the barn. They took our horses as we dismounted.

Then the Widow James, a tall, masculine-looking old woman, with her face expressive of much fearless strength of character, made her appearance. Jesse nodded significantly to her, while motioning me to follow him. As I did so, Frank James supported the wounded Pitts into the house.

Jesse James led me to a little rocky nook behind the barn. The wild forest was on one hand, the barn on the other. Deserted as seemed the spot, I soon became aware that armed men were on the constant lookout at different parts of the farm.

"Now, stranger, for your story," said Jesse James, seating himself on a fragment of rock. "I needn't warn you that it'll be better for you to be truthful to the letter."

"I know that," said I, seating myself, and secretly studying him with devouring curiosity. "A tremor of untruthfulness would mean a bullet in my heart, so you can rely upon exactitude."

He was a man of magnificent proportions, with close clipped, reddish beard, handsome, stern features, and a steely blue eye, whose penetrating glance might have pierced a three-inch plank.

"I am a medical practitioner of Booneville, whither I came from St. Louis less than six months ago," said I.

"Only six months ago?"

"Yes. Let me go on. Notwithstanding my brief practice there, I have already secured the confidence of some of the best families. Among others that of Judge Rideau. His beautiful daughter, Miss Blanche, was a patient of mine. I was also honored with her confidence. Just before she died -- "

"Died?" almost shouted the outlaw, springing to his feet, with a terrible alteration of countenance. "You didn't say before that she was dead. You only said she was dying. Oh, great God! Look you, stranger," he added, in a sudden fury. "See to it that you substantiate what you say, or -- "

He half-drew one of his revolvers.

"Just before Blanche Rideau died," said I, imperturbably, "she told me the story of her miserable love. She also made me swear that I would seek you out, Jesse James, even at the cost of my life, and that I would give you this."

I handed him, as I spoke, a small packet, tied with blue ribbon.

He snatched it from me with a sort of groan. Tearing open its contents -- apparently some time-yellowed letters and other little things -- he turned his back upon me. I heard him breathing hard, and then a half-stifled sound as though he were kissing the packet.

I at that moment had him at such a disadvantage as probably no man ever before had had the dreaded Jesse James. I could easily have shot him dead then and there, and thus have rid the world of perhaps the most successful, murderous and desperate bandit who has ever luridly illuminated the pages of American criminality. But I have never been an assassin, even in dealing with assassins. Moreover, my object was to devise means for the capture of him and his brother alive, and on this I was staking my all.

When he again turned to me, he had thrust the packet of tokens in his bosom, and thoroughly recovered his selfcontrol.

"Stranger, put it there!" said he, extending his hand with real frankness.

I instantly placed my hand in his broad, open palm -- though not without an inward shudder -- and he griped it hard.

"Listen to a few words, doctor," said he. "Though married now to a woman whom I have learned to adore, there's no disloyalty to her in my speaking them. Six years ago Blanche Rideau and I were engaged. We loved each other madly. Had the course of that love been uninterrupted, the world would today behold me a reformed man -- perhaps, also, a useful citizen, instead of the red scourge that I am, tracked everywhere by the bloody footprints of my career. It was interrupted. I am -- what the world has made me."

"It was not Judge Rideau's fault, surely," said I.

"No; it was the fault of his brother, Blanche's uncle -- Henry Rideau -- a million curses on his head!" growled the outlaw between his clenched teeth. "He was the marplot! 'Twas he that ruined all by reporting my accursed antecedents to Blanche and her old father. He's a rich bank president somewhere up in Minnesota now, but I'll get even with him yet -- curse, curse, curse him!"

For a moment his passion was ungovernable. When it had passed, he said, suddenly, in a changed voice:

"Did -- did any message accompany the packet, doctor?"

"Yes; she bade me to seek for your reformation -- for your return to the paths of virtue -- if this is not beyond the bounds of possibility."

The outlaw burst into a frightful laugh.

"Look at me, doctor!" he exclaimed, towering to his full stature, with either hand resting on the butt of a revolver. "Here I stand, Jesse James, the outlaw! All the world's hand is against me, my hand is against all the world in retaliation. Let them send their detectives after me in droves, if they choose. Ay, let them send constables' posses, and even Government troops, if they will. But let them get the drop on me -- let them come and take me if they dare!"

His words were no more desperate and ferocious than his manner, as he spoke. Being a disguised detective myself, I could not refrain from an inward shudder, but I preserved my outward calm.

"With half the country people for your well-wishes, Jess," said I, "you doubtless stand a pretty even chance."

He gave a short laugh.

"Come with me, doe," said he. "In fact, you can't do otherwise now. It's one of our rules never to allow a newcomer to go out of our company, after having once admitted him, until dead sure of his good faith. You shall accompany our band while we remain in this part of the country. You can then judged whether or not there's any likelihood of your reclaiming me even in accordance with the dying prayer of poor Blanche Rideau."

I followed him to the house. When we entered its great, rude, old-fashioned kitchen and dining-room combined, we found a plentiful repast awaiting us, with the Widow James and her two negro servants in attendance. We sat down to it with Frank James, Curly Pitts, and two other men whom Jesse James roughly introduced to me as Charley Miller and Hank Burke.

After dinner, Jesse hurriedly showed me over the house, which I found to be constructed both above and below, very much after the manner of a rude fort.

"We don't often venture to stop here, but, when we do, it's well enough to be prepared," said he, as we returned to the main room. "Come, boys, up and away's the word! There are two dead men out yonder on the road that may yet cause us trouble if we linger."

In a few minutes we were all six in the saddle, and on the move, both Frank and Jesse kissing their mother goodby before mounting.

We did not at once take to the road again, but, gaining a broad forest bridle-path from the rear of the farmhouse, were soon galloping freely through the woods. It was the autumn of the year and magnificent weather.

In about an hour we neared a high road, and here, at a signal from Jesse, we halted in a beautiful little glade, through which a stream of bright water was meandering. Not a word was spoken while we waited. It was easy to see that Jesse James was the natural leader of the wild crew, to whom the most implicit obedience was paid.

Presently a whistle sounded from somewhere away far off in the forest on the opposite side of the road. Jesse James responded to it. Then there came three notes in swift, sharp succession.

"Good!" said Jesse, with a grim look. "They've got their man. I reckon those Chicago detectives, at all events, will give the James boys a wide berth in the future.

Then we saw two young fellows riding across the road toward us. They were rough, farmer-looking lads, but well armed and mounted, and with a certain recklessness of aspect whose significance there was no mistaking. They led a horse, upon whose back was a man with a gag in his mouth, his arms pinioned behind him, and his ankles made fast under the animal's belly.

To my secret horror and commiseration, I recognized in this man, Langman, the fifth Chicago detective, whose cooperation poor Hawes and Whittaker had alluded to but a few minutes preceding their own assassination. Of course, I was not recognized in my turn, and, of course, a sense of selfpreservation now held me speechless and motionless.

"Did you track this one as I ordered, Cutts?" said Jesse, as the new-comers came to a halt in our midst.

"Not all the way to Independence, but the Lamb here did," said the young man addressed, with a gesture toward his companion.

The latter, as I afterward learned, rejoiced in the appellation of Larry the Lamb.

"I tracked him to the telegraph office in the town, Jess," said the latter. "He sent off two dispatches to Chicago, one to the name you said to be on the lookout for. An hour later we knocked him from his horse, and -- well, here he is, Jess!"

At a gesture from the outlaw leader, Cutts and the Lamb dismounted. They cut the thongs at the prisoner's ankles, took him from his horse, and, in a few minutes, had him bound upright with his back to a tree by the roadside.

In this position the wretch faced the whole party with eyes that were wide and haggard, but in whose hopeless depths, I am happy to say, there seemed not an atom of cowardly fear.

At another gesture from the leader, the horsemen then ranged themselves abreast of the prospective victim, at a distance of about twenty paces.

At another gesture, each man drew his revolver, their trained horses in the meantime standing motionless, with the rigidity of statues.

"Ungag him, Cutts," called out Jesse.

Then, turning to me, he added:

"You can draw back and shut your eyes, if you choose, doe. This ain't no funeral of yours."

I had already drawn back from their deadly, murderous line, but I could not close my eyes. I could not even turn my back on the awful tragedy that was about to be perpetrated. It attracted me with a sort of horrible fascination.

"Got anything to say, Chicago?" called Jesse James, when Cutts had removed the gag and stepped back.

"It would do me no good in the presence of such fiends as you are," said Langman, with the courage of despair. "My blood be on your heads!"

Jesse laughed his remorseless laugh.

"One!" said he, at the same time shooting the victim through the body.

"Two!" said Frank James, who was the next on his left hand, the pistol accompaniment speaking with equal precision.

"Three!" called out the next in the line, putting in his shot.

So they kept on coolly counting and shooting, emptying revolver after revolver, until, incredible as it may seem, one hundred shots had been emptied into the defenseless body, and it hung a limp and bleeding mass, for the observation of whatsoever horrified wayfarers might chance along the broad and sunlighted highway.

Then the band began hastily to reload their revolvers, with the exception of Jesse James, who coolly began to scrawl something on a fragment of paper with a lead pencil. This he presently handed to Cutts, with a significant gesture toward the mutilated body on the tree.

"Yonder's a likely signpost, Cutts," said he. "Label it with this, that all may know what it means."

The piece of paper, with which the young desperado then placarded the gory bosom of the corpse, was rudely inscribed as follows:

LET DETECTIVES TAKE WARNING! The James Brothers

This having been accomplished, the outlaw leader gave the signal' and we all galloped up the road at the top of our speed.

The country grew wilder and wilder through which we passed.

Presently, upon coming to a fork in the road, there was a division made in our number. Cutts and the Lamb rode off in one direction; Pitts, Miller, and Burke in another; while I alone accompanied Jesse and Frank James up into the depths of a gloomy forest by-road, that seemed to lead away into a veritable wilderness.

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER II. Pass Out That Treasure Box!

The houses that we passed after entering the gloomy by-road were few and far between, and of an exceptionally lonely and forlorn appearance.

I remarked that with the rough occupants of all of them, so far as there were any signs of life at all, my terrible companions were in signal good-standing.

At last we struck off from even the apology for a road we had been following. A difficult jaunt of ten minutes longer through the scarcely broken forest brought us to a large clearing, in which there was one of the largest and most comfortable-looking cabins I had ever seen.

Among others who came out to meet us were two beautiful, even refined-looking, young women, whom I discovered, to my astonishment, to be the wives of my companions. I was introduced to them and the rest, after a fashion, simply as "doe" Jesse not having thus far seen fit to ask me for any other name.

It was now sunset. I was greatly exhausted in body, mind, and nerve, especially the latter. It was, therefore, not long after the ample supper with which we were regaled that I was glad enough to accept the bed that was offered me in a little room in the back of the house.

I slept soundly, but nevertheless awoke several times during the night. Whenever I did so I became intuitively conscious that I was watched. Of course, I could not conjecture by whom, and the sense itself was an indefinable one at best. But it was, nevertheless, strong, and I knew instinctively just as well as if I had been told so in as many words that any attempt just then to escape from my terrible environment would inevitably result in my violent death.

"Don't worry, sis. Just wait till I make one more big tenstrike, either on a passenger train or with a rich bank, that's all. Then hey for the Panhandle of Texas, and for peace and quiet with my darling. Run into the house now, and I will soon join you."

Such were the words I overheard spoken in the garden just outside of my window when I awoke for the last time, and in broad daylight. The voice was that of Jesse James, and the words were finished by a sound very like a kiss, which I doubted not was bestowed on the lips of a wifely listener. I heard a happy little laugh a moment afterward, followed by a sharp rustle, as of a woman's skirts being whisked into the house, and then the receding footsteps of a man.

Wonderingly thinking of many things, I arose, dressed, and went in search of Jesse, whose protege I was generally thought to be.

As I passed through the rooms on my way to the open air, hardly any one paid the slightest attention to me, expect Frank James, who looked up and nodded surlily as I passed him in the kitchen.

It appeared to be a cleanly, well-ordered household, but an air of suspicious sadness -- a sense of isolation -- an unmistakable consciousness of criminality -- overhung it like a pall. It was as though the house was a man, with the indelible brand of Cain upon its brow.

"Good-morning, Mr. James," said I, as I came upon the outlaw leader, somewhat unawares, in a little nook at the farther side of the clearing.

He stared up confusedly, and hastily hid in his bosom something that he had been earnestly contemplating -- perhaps the packet of tokens I had given him on the preceding day. He was himself again in a moment, however. After exchanging a few remarks, he said:

"Doe, I believe I can trust you."

"I know you can," said I.

"How would you like to go into Independence to-day, to find out for me the drift of public thought concerning Frank and me?"

"Just as you say," said I. "You know the solemn obligation that I feel in being here with you."

"Yes, yes; but will you promise to come back here -- alone -- say at this time to-morrow morning, and report?"

"Solemnly."

"All right, I believe you. Go ahead, then, as soon as you've got your breakfast. By the way, to-day is the last of the big county fair. I may meet you either on or near the grounds this afternoon, if you happen to be on hand."

"What, openly?"

"I never went disguised in my life," said Jesse, coolly.

"But, good Heavens! you wouldn't take such a risk?"

"Yes, I would, by --! and a thundering sight bigger one, for a sufficient stake, and with this at hand!" he exclaimed, clapping his hand on one of his revolvers. "Pshaw, man! my reputation alone carries me through more than half my adventures. Come; there's the breakfast-bell."

Directly after breakfast I mounted and rode away. But little attention was paid to me as I quitted the house. A boy piloted me to the road, and then an hour's gallop brought me in sight of Independence.

But during that hour's ride enough bewildering thoughts occurred to me to make my head whirl. For months I had been praying for just this sort of intimacy with the dreaded James brothers, and now that I had achieved it, I was half appalled at the risk upon which I had entered.

But half of my Booneville story was true, although the lovetokens from the dying Blanche Rideau were genuine. I had never practiced as a physician, but had received the letters and other little things from Judge Rideau himself, soon after his daughter's death. He was a friend of mine, and gave the things to me in the furtherance of my plans, and in the honest hope that they would aid me in bringing these desperate criminals to justice.

Here I was in their confidence at last. But, should they discover my duplicity in this respect, or obtain the first inkling of a suspicion that I was in correspondence with the authorities -- well, from the cruelly murderous scenes that I had already witnessed where detectives were concerned, the reader can judge whether or not I could have any hopes of retaining my own life for a single instant. I was literally carrying my life in my hands. However, I had placed my life upon a die, and there was nothing for it but to stand the hazard of the cast.

I found the town of Independence in a great state of excitement over the previous day's doings of the James brothers.

The first person I met to recognize me was Jewell, the sole remaining Chicago detective. It was on a sidestreet, soon after I put up my horse at the hotel.

He was still shaky from his escape of the preceding day. As soon as he saw me he shrank up against a fence, his eyes starting out of his head, as though he were beholding a ghost.

"Great guns, stranger! you here and alive?" he ejaculated.

"It looks like it," I replied.

"But how did those James devils come to let you off?"

"Am I a detective?"

"But think of Hawes and Whittaker! And it was only last evening that Langman's riddled body was found fastened to the tree."

"What of that?"

"Why, I should think they would have murdered you, too."

"Not at all. They had nothing against an inoffensive, old, country doctor like me. They merely kept me a prisoner all day and night, and then dismissed me -- with a caution. It's a caution I'm not likely to forget."

"Good Lord, I should think not."

"What is to be your next move?" I asked.

"Holy smoke, can you ask? Why, to quit Independence and Missouri as soon as I can muster up the nerve to do so!"

"Nerve? Muster up nerve merely to take passage out of a locality!"

"That's it, stranger. Blast me, if I ain't even afraid to get aboard a railroad train, lest the James boys should gobble me up on the way, locomotive, cowcatcher, and all. I've a wife and three young ones in Chicago -- only let me get back there again, without a hide full of bullets, that's all."

And with that the decidedly demoralized detective meandered off, looking this way and that, as if he dreaded to see a James brother sprout out of every gate post.

I spent the morning in picking up such items of information as I thought would be likely to interest Jesse James when I should meet him again on the following day, in accordance with my promise. I determined to consider myself as being on parole for the time being.

In the course of my sauntering I observed both Cutts and Larry the Lamb in the crowds thronging the streets incidental to the great fair. I pretended to have no knowledge of their whereabouts, though morally sure that one of their chief objects was to spy upon my movements. Doubtless there were other confederates of the outlaws scattered through the crowds for a similar purpose. However, their presence did not make me lose confidence in myself.

Toward noon, hot and thirsty, I strolled into one of the temporary saloons on the fair grounds, and ordered a lemonade. Two sorry negro minstrels were apparently trying to be comical, in the hope of-a few gratuitous quarters, at the rear of the saloon, with a battered banjo and a pair of bones as the accessories. While I was sipping my lemonade at a small table near them, the fellow with the bones began a series of antics around me, and wound up by significantly extending his open palm.

"Not much," I exclaimed, with a countryman's indignation. "I wouldn't pay a cent for your ridiculous monkey shines -- not one cent, sir. Better wash the black off your face and enter upon some honest occupation."

"Gimme a drink, at all events, old hoss," pleaded the mountebank, kicking up another antic or two, while bawling out the fag-end of a cheap ballad at the top of his voice.

Finally, after a good deal of chaffing, I reluctantly allowed him to persuade me to order him a glass of beer. A crowd of loafers and sightseers had in the meantime gathered in the saloon. They stood near the bar, and were doubtless greatly amused at the altercation for the paltry price of a drink between Bones and the stingy old countryman, as they considered me.

Nevertheless, as Bones blew the froth from his beer, and bowed his thanks to me, with a squirming contortion of the body that set the crowd in a roar, he eyed me with a flashing look of intelligence. I recognized him for my man just the same.

"What about the Youngers?" I whispered, over my lemonade.

"They are to have a conference with the Jameses at the end of next week, to plan a colossal train or bank robbery," was the swift reply over the beer. "And you, colonel?

"I am now fairly living with the James boys, and rapidly learning all their plans," was my rejoinder. "Will try and talk with you again to-night. Quick! do something. I'm being watched."

At this juncture Bones "downed" the beer at a gulp, spun the glass in the air and caught it again, shouted out the first lines of a song, and, dashing into the contortions of an original breakdown, wound up by waving one foot in the air and bringing it down on the top of my new hat with crushing and disastrous effect.

Red and excited, I arose- with a roar of simulated rage, and was about to precipitate myself upon him, when the barkeeper interfered. He said I mustn't hurt the musicians, and smilingly advised me to take- myself and my custom in the neighborhood of cheaper refreshments.

With that I indignantly quitted the saloon, amid the jeering laughter of the bystanders, among whom I recognized both Cutts and the Lamb, apparently as jovial at my expense as any of the rest. But, nevertheless, my temper was in reality unruffled, and I had exchanged the necessary information with my confederate just the same.

After dinner at the hotel, I went, with pretty much all the rest of the world, residents and strangers, into the fair grounds. The exhibition of stock and agricultural implements, and flowers and fruits, and the like, was good enough in its way, but I soon wearied of it. Moreover, the crowd in the inclosed ground was wellnigh suffocating.

While wandering curiously about, wondering what Jesse James could have meant by saying that I might see him at the fair, I again ran across Jewell. He had drank so much whisky -- he would probably have called it "mustering up nerve" -- as to have somewhat overcome his apprehensions, and informed me that he would leave Independence on the seven o'clock train of that evening. He was also full of talk about the success of the fair.

"They've taken in twenty-four thousand dollars in three days, sir," he maundered. "There goes Sheriff Masters and he told me so. They've just counted out the amount in the gate-office, there it all stands in a tin box at the elbow of the treasurer of the fair association. Let's take a drink, stranger. By Jove! if I had that much money in Chicago -- far, far from the murdering James devils -- "

Just here I managed to make my escape. I nodded to Masters, with whom I was personally and professionally acquainted, as he passed me a few moments later.

At about four o'clock, when the crowded entertainment was at its height, I grew so tired of the whole thing that I passed out of the inclosure. The surrounding open space, which was just on the outskirts of the town, was almost wholly deserted, in view of the attractions afforded by the inclosed grounds.

As I passed the rough-board ticket-office, I looked through the small, square window at which tickets had been dispensed so profitably for several days. I saw the treasurer -- a large, fine-looking gentleman, with a magnificent beard -- sitting on a high stool, and facing the window. He was smoking a cigar, with the tin moneybox at his elbow, and was apparently in a very contented state of mind.

I made these observations without any particular object, and then began leisurely crossing the deserted grounds, going toward the town.

The sound of hoof-beats in the roadway behind caused me to turn.

To my utter astonishment, I saw Jesse and Frank James riding in from the direction of the open country at a careless, easy gait. -They were both superbly mounted, as was their custom, Jesse being on his sorrel favorite, Dancer.

Before I could recover from my astonishment they had halted before the ticket-office. There Frank took Dancer by the bridle, while Jesse leisurely dismounted, and approached the office window.

I actually thought the treasurer must be an old personal acquaintance, with whom he was about to pass the time of day in a pure spirit of braggadocia.

Here is what really happened.

"I say, Mr. Treasurer," said Jesse, urbanely, thrusting his face into the opening, "what'd you think if I should say that I am Jesse James, the outlaw and order you to pass me out that tin money-box yonder?"

"What would I think, eh?" exclaimed the treasurer, bursting into a laugh, and doubtless deeming he was dealing with a lunatic, or a practical joker. "Why, I should think you a -- fool, and would tell you to go to the devil!"

"Well, that's just what I do say, and order you to do," cried Jesse, thrusting his revolver through the opening, and inconveniently getting "the drop" on the astounded official. "Hand out that box -- quick, or you're a dead man!"**

"But look here -- hold on -- this money, d'ye see -- "

"Out with it!" roared the robber, with a frightful oath. "Delay but another instant, and my bullet's in your heart!"

The panic-stricken treasurer handed out the box. But an instant was required to transfer its precious contents into the inside of Dancer's capacious saddlebags.

A moment more and the empty tin box was on the ground, while the successful bandit brothers were galloping away with their booty at a tremendous pace.

It all happened almost directly under my eyes, and was an accomplished fact almost before I realized what had occurred.

The alarm was instantly given. In less than five minutes after the perpetration of the deed, upward of fifty horsemen were galloping in pursuit of the robbers.

Anxious to witness the result, I hastily procured a horse, and joined a small group of excellently equipped pursuers, headed by Sheriff Dick Masters, a brave and capable official.

In gaining the thickly wooded, hilly country, we chose the worst road to be found. It led tortuously in and out of the defiles caused by the blending of the foothills and bold, rocky spurs.

While our party were threading one of these defiles at a breakneck gait, a shout from far above our heads caused us to draw rein and look up.

There, up and away, where the wild road bordered the edge of a frightful chasm, we beheld the daring fugitives skimming away on their fleet steeds, like a pair of-eagles, along the face of the cliff.

"Good-by, Dick Masters," called out the younger but abler villain, waving his hat triumphantly. "Score down one more red mark for Jesse James, the outlaw!"

[Back]*An actual fact, without any exaggeration whatsoever.

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER III. Jesse James' Mystery

In accordance with my promise to Jesse, the outlaw, I sought the wild, hill-folded, forest-muffled retreat of the James brothers at an early hour of the following morning.

The retreat was a secure one. Admirably mounted as I was, and with a good memory for landmarks, I could never, unaided, have penetrated to the log farmhouse. The same lad who had guided me to the road on the previous day was in waiting to help me to retrace my steps.

Up to that point I had found the rocky road and bridlepaths thoroughly but imperceptibly sentineled. No wonder that the outlaws felt secure, in spite of the boldness of their depredations. Every scattered farmhouse, every herder's hut, every woodcutter's cabin, contained a friend or a spy in their nefarious cause. A hostile party, or even a single suspicious-looking stranger, could not have come within half a mile of the loghouse without its occupants receiving timely warning of the approach.

Two voices, a man's and a woman's, were heard in angry altercation as I neared the porch. No one was as yet visible. But as I dismounted and threw my bridlerein to my guide, the door opened. Jesse James and his wife came out of it.

He nodded to me in a careless way, while the woman honored me with a swift, venomous look. It was almost the first she had ever deigned to cast on me at all.

They were watchful and composed instantly, but I knew that they had been quarreling. Just as instinctively did I ascribe the cause to the dead girl's mementos which I had placed in the outlaw's keeping on the previous day.

"Morning, doc! You're true to your word," said Jesse, advancing. "It's an hour to breakfast. Come up on the mountain with me."

We moved away, paying no attention to his wife. But I momentarily observed that her fine eyes contracted, like those of a cat, as they briefly followed our movements.

"By the way, doe," said Jesse, when we came to a pause in a lonely spot, "what's the last name you go by? I haven't thought it worth while to ask you before now."

"I go by my own name, and none other, of course," said I, gravely. "It's Phillips."

"Phillips, eh? Dr. Phillips? Dr. Phillips, of Booneville? Good!"

"I'm glad you like it," said I, feeling secretly ill at ease.

"Like it? To be sure I do. Why not? Well, doe, I want to talk with you, perhaps for the last time, about -- Blanche Rideau." And he eyed me like a hawk. "How much of her past history did she impart to her father and you on her deathbed?"

"Everything."

"I mean of her history be -- before she met me?"

"Everything."

"About her schoolgirl's marriage with Tom Younger?"

"Yes."

"About her child -- the boy that Tom stole away from her?"

"Yes."

He drew a long breath, and remained moodily silent for several minutes.

"You're deeper into that chapter of my past than I thought for, it seems," said he, at last.

"I trust that it will prove only for your good, Jess," said I.

"It had better not prove for anything else, old boy," he went on, with an ugly look, while his hand fell upon the butt of one of his revolvers. "So you know how Tom Younger married Blanche when she was at boarding-school at St. Joe?"

"Yes."

"How it was all kept dark from her relatives -- even the birth of her child at the cabin of the old regress who had been her nurse?"

"Yes."

"How she got to hate Tom on discovering him to be a robber belonging to my band?"

"Yes."

"How she then deserted him and returned home to Booneville, carrying child and nurse with her, without her folks suspecting it?"

"Yes."

"How Tom stole away the boy, and then deputed me to negotiate with her for the boy's restoration, on condition of her acknowledging her relationship and living openly?"

"Yes."

"How Tom Younger was killed by the Kansas City officers while the negotiations were pending, and I thereupon made love to Blanche on my own account, and successfully?"

"Yes."

"How we were about to be married, and I was about to restore the boy to her, when her uncle found me out hounded me forth, and she was forced to give me up?"

"Yes."

"And how after that I kept the boy hidden, in revenge?"

"She told us all."

"The --- she did!" exclaimed the outlaw, and, drawing another long breath, he began to pace the ground angrily.

Presently he came to an abrupt pause before me, with his eye suspiciously seeking mine.

"Confess," said he, "that you're here as Judge Rideau's agent, to try to recover Blanche's child from me."

"I acknowledge freely that that is one of the minor objects of my mission, Jess," I replied, having prepared for the query before it was put. "My chief object is in fulfillment of Blanche's dying injunction with regard to yourself, as I told you before -- as the tokens must have proved to you, I should think."

"True."

"As for the rest, I have simply promised to plead with you for the boy's surrender to him, for the boy's own good, in case I should ever find you in a repentant and remorseful mood."

"Ha, ha, ha! Repentant and remorseful, as applied to me, is good! You saw something of that sort of application yesterday and the day before. You'll have a chance of assuring yourself yet more fully in that regard, for you shan't quit my sight again while I'm in this corner of the country."

"I don't care if I shall not," said I. "Personally, I don't dislike you. I admire your boldness and decision of character, in spite of your crimes."

"Good enough! But I'd rather be feared than liked. However, you'll never find out anything about the boy. I'll keep him to spite the Rideaus, with one of whom, the Minnesota bank president, I've got a sterner account to settle. Come on. There's the breakfast-bell. After that you shall accompany me to the Red Hollow."

When we were half way back to the house he paused again.

"Hark ye, doe," said he. "If my wife should manage to question you on the sly, not a word!"

"Not a syllable."

"She knows you brought me those tokens, and she's got an inkling or two about the boy. She'll be glad to know more than she does."

"Which she never will from me. Trust me for that."

Before we entered the house it occurred to me to refer admiringly to the daring robbery of the afternoon before, and to express some wonder that he had not even alluded to it.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the outlaw. "It was cleverly done, wasn't it? And there was a trifle over twenty thousand dollars in that tin box that Frank and I so quickly emptied. Two or three more hauls like that and we're off for the Texas Panhandle for a long rest. But wait and see, wait and see. Big things are ahead."

I had a tremendous appetite for the hearty breakfast to which we were called. While I was yet topping it off, Jesse and Frank James went out to the stable to prepare for our ride. The rest of the household had also bustled out of the room, with the exception of Jesse's wife. She remained sipping her coffee directly across the table from me, and negligently aware of what a trim, pretty little creature she was.

Directly that we were alone together, however, she flashed a swift, intelligent glance upon me.

"You are looking for Tip Younger, the little boy that Jess keeps somewhere concealed," said she, in a low, eager voice. "If I can help you to find and run off the child I'll do it."

I was too wary to trust a woman calling Jesse James husband to the extent of a row of pins.

"Madam," said I, quite stiffly, "whatever may be my business, it shall be transacted strictly and solely with your husband."

"Ah, I see. You don't dare to trust me. But I'd give anything if he had that other woman's child off his mind. I hated her, and I'm glad she's dead."

I contented myself with bowing and looking shocked

"Jess will be back in another minute -- listen!" she continued, hurriedly. "You may fall under his suspicion at any instant -- to do so is death. But even then, if you should give me a sign that you have found the little Tip and can take him away from Jess, I will help you to escape. Look -- I mean a sign something like this."

She pouted her lips and elevated her eyebrows in a peculiar manner as she finished speaking.

I only stared and burst into a short laugh.

A few minutes later I was in the saddle at her husband's side. While Frank James was riding slightly ahead I told Jesse what his wife had said, with the single reservation of her offer to assist me in case of trouble. I carefully kept that to myself, in view of possibly benefiting thereby at some time or other.

The outlaw burst into a laugh.

"Molly has never forgiven my having loved poor Blanche first," said he. "She's awfully jealous of my secreting the little Tip, whom she has never even laid eyes on. She'd give her best finger to have the boy lost to me. But that shall never be."

Then, after a brief silence, he suddenly gave me a meaning look.

"I say, doe," said he, "if the old judge is so anxious to secure Blanche's boy, money might talk. You understand. But anything short of a cool ten thousand wouldn't be listened to."

"I never heard him mention money in connection with the boy," I replied, briefly, and we quickened our pace.

The truth was this: The recovery of the mysteriously secreted boy, at that time about five years old, was one of the objects of my perilous mission among these desperadoes, only second to the arrest of the James brothers themselves.

Judge Rideau was too shrewd to have directly offered Jesse the heavy reward which was waiting in his hands for me, in case I should succeed in spiriting away the child. The unscrupulousness of the outlaw had been too often made patent, and there would have been too much likelihood of his hanging on to his secret in the hope of a second, or even third, reward, after one had been agreed upon, and paid over.

The James boys' success in robbery had made them avaricious, as well as bold. So the matter stood.

Red Hollow was a wild, wooded nook in the hills, obtaining its name from the redness of the wind-worn, raingullied earth-banks interspersing its screen of rugged trees. It was considerably off the main road, and perhaps midway between Independence and Kansas City.

Observable at a distance through the trees was a large, dilapidated, old farmhouse, situated in the midst of partly cultivated grounds, with the unbroken forest at its back.

This place I had seen and taken note of before. It was the home of the Younger brothers, Cole, John and Bob, the most daring and efficient coadjutors of the James brothers, and scarcely less desperate and venturesome than they.

Halting by a brook that ran through the hollow, Jesse sounded his whistle as the gathering signal.

It was speedily responded to. Men, armed to the teeth, came riding into the place of rendezvous from different directions, singly, in pairs, and in larger groups.

Hither came Cole, John and Bob Younger, splendidly mounted, bold and reckless-looking men, who hailed and saluted the Jameses with a free-and-easy familiarity that argued but little recognition of the latter as leaders. From another quarter appeared Jim Cummings, Jesse's terrible lieutenant, and generally thought to be even more deadly and bloodthirsty than he. He was accompanied by Dick Little and George Sheppard, the latter with but one eye, and having only recently rejoined the gang, after having once severed his connection with it.

Sheppard and I exchanged a swift glance of intelligence. He recognized me underneath my disguise, and I knew him to be at that moment in the service of Sheriff Masters. He had lost his left eye in the raid on the Kentucky bank, but was still a dead shot with the remaining optic.

He had served a term of imprisonment for his share in that robbery, and had ever since believed that Jesse James had purposely thrown him into the clutches of the law, for the purpose of throwing off the scent from his own tracks. Sheppard was also of the opinion that Jesse James had subsequently murdered his, Sheppard's nephew, Harry Sheppard, to obtain Harry's five-thousanddollar share of the Kentucky spoils. At all events I was so sure of George Sheppard's real motives in rejoining the robbers as to experience no uneasiness as to his having penetrated my identity.

Among the others who poured into the hollow in obedience to the leader's signal I recognized a number from the personal descriptions that I had taken care to photograph upon my mind. Among these were Wood, and Jeff Hite and Ed Miller. The latter was no relation to the Charly Miller already alluded to, whom was likewise present again, together with his comrades of the day before, Hank Burke and Curly Pitts, the latter with his neck still bandaged from the effects of the Chicago detective's bullet.

These veterans in crime were accompanied by several beardless youths, farmers' misguided sons, emulous of iniquitous notoriety, who were posted as sentinels around the skirts of the hollow.

Altogether, there were mustered into the hollow a score or more of wild and lawless men, such as perhaps, had never before been associated together in the United States outside of California in its worst days.

"Boys," called out Jesse James, after a number of criminal plans for the future had been discussed, without arriving at any definite conclusion, "you've all heard by this time of Frank's exploit and mine at the fair grounds yesterday afternoon."

A united cry of approval was the response.

"Well, boys, we raked in a trifle over twenty thousand by that dash," continued the outlaw leader. "And I'll tell you what we're going to do. The whole swag ,of course, belongs to Frank and me individually, but we're going to divide half of it among the crowd in the usual apportionment."

I could not but smile at the increased enthusiasm that greeted this apparently spontaneous and generous offer, so really calculating and eelfish at foundation, inasmuch as it merely redoubled the devotion of the crew in the furtherance of other and more dangerous undertakings.

Then Jesse and Frank James made a division of the ten thousand dollars they had brought with them, as being, at a rough estimate, one-half the amount of which they had plundered the treasurer of the fair association. This operation consumed considerable time, but naturally caused the most intense satisfaction while it was in progress.

"Boys," said Jesse James, at last, "I've been running over in my mind those two projects proposed by Wood Hite and Charley Miller, and have concluded that we can take 'em up at our leisure, and in regular order."

He then went on to discuss the projects in question. They were briefly these: Wood Hite's plan was to stop and rob the express and passenger train from the East, in the Blue Cut, a deep and dangerous railroad cutting two and a half miles out of Independence. It was proposed to do this toward the end of the month we were then in, when assurance should be received of an unusually heavy shipment of treasure by express, which it was known would be along the road somewhere about that time.

Charley Miller was a fugitive of justice from Minnesota, having been a horse thief in that State before joining the band of Jesse, the outlaw. His scheme was to make a daytime raid in large force into the populous town of Northfield, his native place, and empty the safes of the national bank there at the point of the revolver. This would be a repetition of the manner in which the James brothers and their confederates had robbed a wealthy national bank in the interior of Kentucky several years before. Miller argued that a similar job could be effected with equal success in Minnesota, and the plunder got away with before the inhabitants could recover from the panic and demoralization incidental to the unexpectedness of the attack.

It was now decided to put this undertaking on foot directly after the proposed robbery of the express train in the Blue Cut should have been effected.

One circumstance tended especially to Jesse's greedily taking to the Minnesota scheme. The president of the bank at Northfield was none other than Blanche Rideau's uncle, Henry Rideau, who had been mainly instrumental in separating him from his first love, and against whom he had sworn implacable revenge.

Night was falling while these schemes were being discussed in much greater detail than I have seen fit to accord to them.

Suddenly a young fellow, whom I then saw for the first time, spurred unceremoniously into the hollow. His eyes were ablaze with excitement, while his horse was hardblown.

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER IV. A Train Robbery

"What's up, Bulger?" demanded the outlaw leader.

"The best chance you've had for a coon's age, Jess, and right at hand!" panted the youth. "Just got wind of it from my brother, who is the railroad telegraph operator at Winston."

"Yes, yes; out with it!"

"A train with but one passenger car will be at Winston in an hour. Rest of the cars met with an accident in the Gap three hours ago. Express messenger on train with a big pile John's sure of it. Passengers, few, and for the most part women."

An anxious hush suddenly fell on the majority of the band, while the James brothers looked at each other, exchanging calculating glances.

There were few, even in that desperate band, so cold and hardened in vice as they. Among most of them the first proposition to fresh crime had still its chilling effect.

"What are you hesitatin' for, Jess?" suddenly shouted Jim Cummings, with an oath. "Of course, you're goin' for the job, it'll get our hands in for the bigger 'un at the end of the month."

"Of course, we are!" cried Jess, with a voice like a steel bell. "I was only calculatin' the general arrangement. Masks in readiness! Bustle 'em out, Jim! Frank, you look after the greenhorns and strangers."

I found a moment later, as we began to move out of the hollow two and two, that the last word applied to George Sheppard and me. We were placed in line among the country boys. Dick Little, however, rode directly behind us, with, I felt, a watchful eye on our every movement.

We were soon on the high road, and a sharp gallop of four miles brought us in the neighborhood of Winston station.

Here we halted by the railroad track at the edge of a wood. At the order of Jesse James, the entire band, with the exception of myself, then put on masks, which they had in readiness, the masks being made of several thicknesses of stiff cotton, with holes cut for the eyes and mouth. We at first closed ranks, and there was a silent review of our number and efficiency by the outlaw leader. Then the country boys, with Sheppard and me among them, were stationed on either side of the track, while the rest of the gang began to pile up stones between the rails.

We were ordered to make a great noise as soon as the train should be brought to a standstill, and to fire eighteen or twenty shots, but not to shoot any one unless compelled to, and not to use up all our ammunition.

"You needn't do anything but look on, doe," said Jesse to me, while making his last round of inspection. "I'm sorry to have mixed you up in this thing, but there was no help for it."

Then I heard him say to Sheppard:

"Strep, an old hand like you must feel mean at being put to one side here among the greenies, but you know you are still on your second probation with the gang."

Sheppard made some sort of an accommodating reply, and just then the rumble and roar of the approaching train was heard in the distance.

Jesse James and his veterans had before this dismounted, while we at the side of the track remained still in the saddle. Jesse now stood in the center of the track, bearing in his hand a red lantern, which one of the Youngers had obtained at their farmhouse. He waved it three times over his head as the train approached, and it came to a stop within a dozen feet of the stone heap on which he was standing.

"Off that engine or you're a dead man!" shouted Jim Cummings and Cole Younger, springing toward the engineer and fireman, who were peering out from the side of the locomotive.

With the pistols covering them, they obeyed in an instant.

"Oh, Lord!- It isn't Jess James' gang, is it?" exclaimed the engineer, with his knees knocking together.

"You can bet on that, old man!" said Jess, springing past him, followed by his crime-trained comrades.

In another instant the conductor and the two brakemen were in the hands of the desperadoes, with pistols at their heads, while Jesse and Frank James battered in the door of the express car and ordered the messenger to come out of it on pain of instant death.

The latter was not disposed to surrender his charge without a show of fight, and drew his revolver. But two or three bullets that were sent singing by his ears brought him to terms. The next moment his revolver was snatched from him, and he was in the car, tremblingly opening the receptacle of his treasures, with the revolvers of the James boys nudging him in the back of the head, and the gleam of the red lantern flashing in his face.

In the meantime my immediate companions, agreeable to their instructions, were banging away with their firearms, at a great rate, and cursing and shouting under the windows of the passenger car at the top of their lungs.

While this was going on the rest of the gang, headed by John and Bob Younger, were going through the crowded passenger car, pistol in hand.

All was dark outside, but I could see plainly into the lighted car, and note the confusion and terror that were taking place. It was such a scene as, under other circumstances, would have had its ludicrous features, the men groaning and throwing up their hands under the menacing muzzles of the revolvers, the women screaming and grasping their wraps, and the young fellows outside shooting and swearing until you would have thought the foul fiend and all his imps had suddenly broken from their confines to make a pandemonium on earth.

In less than ten minutes, however, the entire robbery had been effected.

Jesse James and his comrades jumped off the train, and the conductor and engineer were ordered to "move along."

This they did in a hurry, after a few minutes spent in clearing the track of the obstructions.

"How did the passengers pan out, Bob?" called out Jesse, as he hastily remounted, after stuffing his saddlebags with something that Frank and he were carrying.

"Poor enough, Jess," was Bob Younger's response. "There wasn't more'n a dozen men in the car, and I didn't feel like makin' the women shell out."

"Good enough," said Jesse. "We've never yet been so hard up as to rob the dear creatures. Boys," he added, turning to the band, who were now grouped around him, "of course, I can't tell yet how much we've skinned the express company out of. You'll trust Frank and me to count it, ready for a division, won't you?"

"Yes, yes. Take your time," answered a dozen voices.

"Meet us at our mother's house a week from to-day then, and the division shall be made," said Jesse. "That will be safest, because they'll never think of looking for us there. But be sure to come straggling up singly throughout the entire day. Break up now. It's every man for himself till a week from to-day."

The dispersion was effected quickly and quietly.

Only Jesse and Frank James, George Sheppard, Cole Younger and I remained together. In a few minutes we had regained the high road, galloped along it a considerable distance, turned off into a narrow, rocky path leading through the woods, and were making our way rapidly through the wild region in the direction of the log farmhouse.

We did not venture to return thither that night, however, as neither Jesse nor Frank deemed it would be safe. My companions seemed perfectly familiar with every foot of the way. We had nothing but the light of the stars to guide us, but they shaped their course across the country without a stumble, and as unerringly as if they were proceeding in broad daylight.

We presently came to a deserted hut in a grassy glade of the forest. Here it was announced we should tarry for the night. We dismounted, turning our horses loose upon the grass, and the Jameses and Younger entered the hut, while Sheppard and I were told to gather up fagots for a fire.

"I say," whispered Sheppard to me, when we were thus engaged in the woods for a few minutes later, "you're also on the lookout for the little boy that Jess is said to keep hidden away, ain't you?"

"Yes," I replied, in the same tone.

"Well, if you ever find him at all, it'll be somewhere's about the Younger homestead. Them precious twins is only kept there, instead of bein' sent to school, as a sort of cover for the more vallyble young one you're lookin' for. Hush! Don't reply."

I fortunately heeded the injunction. At that moment there was heard a stealthy tread behind us. I was not surprised, upon turning my head, to perceive that Jesse James had followed us, and that his eyes were regarding us like those of a beast of prey through the darkness.

When Sheppard had carried into the cabin the fuel we had jointly collected, the outlaw laid a not unkind hand upon my arm and detained me.

"What do you think of my chances for reformation by this time?" said he.

"They're certainly not brilliant, Jess," was my reply.

"Let me tell you something to reinforce from the past what you've already seen," said he. "I, as a mere boy, belonged to Quantrell's guerrilla force during the war, as you must have heard. It wasn't a hundred miles from this spot that a large detachment of us, under Bill Anderson, captured a railway train, containing two hundred invalid soldiers on their way to St. Louis for hospital treatment. Bill Anderson shot them all through the heart with his own hand, one after the other, I aligning them up before him, and his men supplying him with a fresh revolver as fast as he emptied the one in his hand. This is gospel truth. What do you think of it?"

"I've heard of it before," said I, with an inward shudder.

"He had hardly finished with the sick men," he continued, "before a detachment of a hundred blue-coats came in sight over the hill. They surrendered-to our superior force, and all shared the fate of the invalids."**

"I have heard of that before, also."

"Judge, then, if there can be any reformation, any redemption, for such as me!" said the outlaw. "Judge if it is possible, even upon the dying injunction of the first woman I ever loved. However," he added, with his short, hard laugh, "you've got to stay with us now till we quit the country. There's no help for it."

A bright fire had been lighted in the fireplace of the hut when we entered it, and the other men were engaged in frying some bacon, which they had obtained from a small cupboard. In fact, there were many other evidences of the hut being frequently used for the purpose of temporary hiding, to which it was now being put.

We ate heartily, slept all night on the floor with one or other of the chief trio constantly on guard on the outside, and at an early hour on the following morning took up our journey again, with our steeds even more refreshed than we.

Jesse James' horse, Dancer, however, sustained a sprain by stumbling into a gully soon after we had started, and this put his rider in a very bad humor.

As we came in view of the log farmhouse we saw a single horseman awaiting us by the porch. Jesse directed Sheppard and me to follow more leisurely, and then he and his companions galloped on ahead.

They had all dismounted, and were apparently talking carelessly together, with Jesse's and Frank's wives standing in the porch, when Sheppard and I rode up, and likewise dismounted.

My feet had no sooner touched the ground, however, than the four men, Jesse and Frank James, Cole Younger and the newcomer, who was the callow desperado, Cutts, precipitated themselves upon me with a fierce shout.

In less time than I can tell it, they had me overpowered, and bound fast, with my back against one of the vinecurtained pillars of the porch.

"What in thunder's the meaning of this?" I gasped, as soon as I could find a voice.

"You've deceived me!" said Jess, the outlaw, in a cold, deadly tone. "Cutts here has been to Booneville, and found out all about you. You ain't no doctor at all. One!"

He drew his revolver as he spoke, the three others imitating his example. Then the four muzzles were aimed at my heart.

[Back]*These are actual facts belonging to the history of the late war.

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER V. Jess Outwitted -- Detectives in Council

I managed to preserve my coolness, even at this terrible moment, which I did not doubt for an instant was to prove my last on earth.

"Do as you please about killing me," I said, without a tremble in my voice, "but I have deceived in no material respect."

"There never was a doctor in Booneville named Phillips," said Jesse James, his finger still on the trigger, while the muzzles of the other revolvers also continued to stare at me unwaveringly.

"I know it, and in that trifling regard only did I deceive you," said I. "Judge Rideau though it best that I should conceal the fact of my being a personal friend of his, and on his advice I hit upon the plan pursued. The rest of my story will be verified by the judge himself, whom you know to be incapable of falsehood."

"You're a spy -- a detective in disguise," exclaimed Jesse, savagely.

"You're a liar, and you must know that you lie," I replied. "How about those tokens -- those mementos? Do you dare to tell me that you doubt their genuineness?"

"I say, Jess, there needn't be no hurry about this thing," said Frank James, putting up his pistol.

Younger and Cutts did the same. Sheppard stood among the horses, but a few paces away, apparently as unconcerned as a man of stone, and with his single eye fastened upon me with pretended pitilessness.

My last remark had occasioned an interested rustle of garments on the porch behind me, and a moment later the women came out on the lawn to have a look at me.

Jesse James remained immovable, with his revolver still covering my breast, but my last response seemed to have mollified him a little.

Nevertheless he growled out an oath, saying:

"I don't care a curse for that! I warned you against deceiving me in the least particular, and die you must."

His wife here placed her hand on his wrist, and told him to go first and talk the matter over with the others. He complied reluctantly, though still keeping his eye threateningly upon me, even after putting up his revolver.

Just at that moment I recalled in a flash the assistance she had promised me in case I should succeed in finding out the concealed child, and the signal by which she had told me to notify her of such an event.

Simultaneously with the same thought occurred the invigorating reflection that I had not been deprived of my revolver, and that my horse, a splendid animal, might be reached in two or three bounds should I suddenly be freed of my bonds.

In my emergency, I couldn't afford to weigh the question of sincerity or insincerity that was involved.

I watched for my opportunity when Jesse James had momentarily withdrawn his eyes from me, and was conferring with his brother and Cole Younger. I then caught the attention of Jesse's wife, and gave her the sign, swiftly pursing up my lips and elevating my eyebrows.

I saw that I was understood. A slight color came into her face, she seemed to hesitate a moment, and then she left her companion's side with seeming carelessness, and returned to the porch.

I heard the rustle of her skirt in the vine behind me and then a slight clicking sound. I suddenly felt that the bonds fastening me to the porch post had been severed -- that I was free.

There was then a retreating rustle of skirts. I waited, to give my liberator a chance to retire into the house, while stealthily feeling down for the butt of my revolver, and gathering my strength and nerves for a supreme effort.

Then I simultaneously drew my pistol and bounded toward my horse, while giving utterances to an Apache yell.

Drawing their weapons, the four men turned toward me with the quickness of lightning, but I was quicker than they. My first shot struck Jesse's pistol, knocking it from his hand while it was exploding. My second pierced Cole Younger's right arm, as he was on the point of firing, causing it to drop powerless at his side. Then Frank James' bullet sang harmlessly over my head, as my third bound brought me into the saddle, and a blow of my left hand sent George Sheppard sprawling -- for his own good and appearances' sake. Then, as I wheeled my horse, I nipped Master Cutt's hostile intentions in the bud by sending a bullet through his body, and the next instant I was up and away for the skirting forest like the wind, with their bullets whistling after me, though, fortunately, without effect.

I heard them thundering after me in pursuit, even before I could gain the woods. But, with Jesse James' Dancer out of the race by reason of his sprain, I knew that I was the best mounted, my only remaining danger lying in my unfamiliarity with the way.

However, fortune favored me signally. My horse went crashing through the forest like a bolt, and seemed to find the first bridle-path by a sort of dumb instinct. Prom this we gained the wild by-road and went plunging down it. The few suspicious dwellers by the way -- all of them, inferentially, in sympathy with the gang -- came rushing out of their lonely cabins to see me pass, some of them rifle in hand -- but that was all. Not a shot was fired, not an impediment offered. I was soon out of the perilous intricacies of the hills, out upon the broad highroad leading to Independence.

For the first time, according to common report, Jesse James' fairly cornered victim had escaped with life and liberty, and I was the man.

On reaching Independence I said nothing of my adventure, but went at once to my room in the hotel. Half an hour later I issued thence in my own proper person. Even the James brothers' lynx-eyed suspicion would not have recognized my identity with the old country doctor from Booneville who had been the guest-prisoner for so long.

The robbery of the train at Winston had naturally intensified the local excitement incident upon he seizure of the fair association's assets, and the murder of the detectives that had preceded it. I carefully abstained from adding to the prevailing alarm by making public my own adventures.

The detectives and other officials, with whom I was professionally acquainted, were out on the road, engaged in their vain pursuit of the robbers.

But, late on the following night, I found myself at a conference in an obscure cabin, owned by an old regress named Aunt Cynthy, on the outskirts of the town. The outside approaches to the cabin were thoroughly sentineled The old negro woman herself could be relied on. She was none other than the nurse who had befriended Blanche Rideau at St. Joseph, after the latter's mad schoolgirl's marriage with Tom Younger, the bandit.

It was out of old Cynthy's possession, also, at Booneville, that Blanche's child had been subsequently stolen, and she hated Jesse James and his whole gang with a hatred bordering on frenzy.

It must be mentioned in passing, however, that she had no faith in Judge Rideau's ultimate recovery of the boy through my exertions or by any other means. She implicitly believed that the boy had long since been put to death by Jesse James, whom she thought capable of any cowardly, as well as any desperate crime. In this I did not agree with her.

My associates in the cabin were Captain Dick Masters, of Independence; Sheriff Timberlake and Captain Craig (police commissioner), of Kansas City; Jack Gorham, an independent private detective, like myself, and Sloane and Chipps, my personal assistants, who have already been cursorily introduced to the reader in the disguise of negro minstrels.

My companions had returned, dejected and out of humor, after a bootless all-day pursuit of the robbers But I had just recounted my own adventures, consider ably to their enlivenment, and after learning with satisfaction that not one of the posse of seven had been killed outright, or even seriously wounded, in the wild charge through their line, in which I had participated under compulsion, several days previously.

Then there had fallen on us all the natural sense of awkwardness incident to men bent upon the same general object, but not heartily associated or organized in the attainment.

"Here's the difficulty!" at last exclaimed Craig, bringing his fist down heavily on the table around which we were sitting. "It's the general desire to earn individually the rattling big rewards offered by the Government the railroads and the express companies, instead of working all together and making a fair division in case of success."

"To which may be added the five thousand offered by the fair association," I observed, with an assenting nod.

"To which will be added twenty or thirty thousand more by whatever country banks Jesse and his gang shall succeed in robbing, doubtless before we can find hide or hair of 'em," smilingly supplemented Jack Gorham, also on the independent "lay."

It was a clear case of diamond cut diamond. There was a general smile, followed by a look of gloom. Then Timberlake's fist was brought down on the table in its turn:

"That's just it!" he exclaimed. "And the question simply is, whether we can afford to work independently or only in halfhearted fellowship, instead of all in concert together, with a common will, and with a common interest in view."

"Ay, that's the talk," said Masters. "Hasn't the fate of Pinkerton's Chicagoans proved the futility of private action against the Jameses and their devil's crew? Three were killed, and Jewell, the sole survivor, slunk homeward yesterday, halfscared out of his senses, though naturally a man of steady nerve."

Then the three regulars looked askance at Gorham and me, while my two fellows, Sloane and Chipps, silently awaited my decision. What had been advanced was most sensible. I had given it much thought during several days, and now once more turned the matter slowly over in my mind.

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you what I'll agree to, and stand by," said I, at length. "I'll associate with you all, heart and soul, against the entire James gang, share and share alike in such rewards as apply to its members, with the sole exceptions of Jesse and Frank James. Let whosoever succeeds in bringing in these chiefs, alive or dead, claim and receive the entire reward pertaining to them individually, be their actual captors one, two, three, or even more of our number."

This proposition received at once the thoughtful attention it deserved.

"You're wide-awake for number one, at all events, Lawson," said Timberlake. "You now know more about the lives and habits of the James than any of the rest of us.

"Haven't I obtained the knowledge at the repeated risk of my life?" I coolly replied. "Moreover, your remark is not strictly correct, Timberlake. George Sheppard knows far more of the Jameses than I do. He was with them in Quantrell's guerrillas; robbed, murdered and fought with them all through the Kentucky bank robberies, and is now in your employ."

This silenced the sheriff, but Craig made haste to say:

"But, Lawson, the rewards out on the Jameses makes an amount half as great as those that are out on the entire remainder of the gang, the three Youngers included."

"I am aware of that," said I, dryly, "but you have my proposition, which is the only one I care to make. I should think I'd already shown my good-will toward you regulars by giving you the names of those, greenies and all, who were engaged the other night in the train robbery at Winston."

"So you did," said Masters, with real heartiness. "We'll nab the telegraph operator, Bulger, to-morrow, and then the rest of the greenies, at least, one after another. There'll be a right smart reward forthcoming for even them, and you'll get the heavier share of it, as you deserve."

"I'm in favor of Lawson's proposition!" suddenly exclaimed Gorham, springing up and seizing my hand. "It's every man for himself, so far as the James boys are concerned, and all of us together, share and share alike, for the rest of the gang! Gentlemen, what do you say?"

"I agree," said Masters, taking my hand with equal heartiness.

"So do I!" cried Timberlake, "And I'll answer for the co-operation of my agent, George Sheppard."

"You can count me in, since it's a family affair," called out-Craig. "My man, the ax-robber, Charley Ford, will likewise stand in with the agreement."

"Of course, Chipps and I," said Sloane, indicating his chum, "are already booked in the interest of Billy Lawson, our chief.

We all then suddenly joined hands, and formally agreed to abide by the conditions embodied in the proposition I had made.

"You're welcome to the advantage you'll have over the rest of us, Billy," laughingly observed Gorham, as we renewed our seats, with something good to drink suddenly set before us by old Cynthy. "None of them will ever suspect your identity with the old Booneville doctor, and you can play off fresh in the future."

This was in allusion to the smooth-shaven guilelessness of my natural appearance, which was at that time exceptionally boyish for my age.

We had hardly ratified our agreement before we were joined by Charley Ford. He was a quiet, selfcontained, resolute fellow, formerly an active member of the James band, but in retirement from it for several years, and now secretly in Commissioner Craig's employ. Then, a little later, much to my astonishment, but not less to the gratification of all of us, who should next put in an appearance, but George Sheppard.

They were first mate acquainted with the agreement we had just entered into. This they eagerly endorsed. Then Ford gave a choice bit of information that he had brought from up the river, and Sheppard, after learning that I had been beforehand with him in regard to all necessary information concerning the Winston affair, told us of the changes that had taken place in the James' programme incidental to my escape.

"I never saw a man so infernally mad as Jess James was after you had got away, colonel," said Sheppard. "He acted like a demon. But to this hour it is a mystery to him how you managed to burst your bonds, though I have my private opinion on the subject. Thanks for the upset you gave me as you regained the saddle. That, and the tearin' mad way in which I helped to bang away after you as you broke for the woods, about finished up making me hunk once more in Jess' good graces. For the rest, you didn't even mark Jess in shootin' the pistol out of his hand, but you shot Cutts through the body, from which he's likely to turn up his toes, and Cole Younger will have a sore arm for a month to come."

"Doubtless the band won't meet now at the Widow James' for the division of the Winston swag, as they had intended," said I.

"Not by a long shot!" was the reply. "Your escape has given that scheme away. By the way, Lawson, you've got it wrong about the James boys' mother. She's the Widow Samuels now, having married a second time, years ago, not long after the death of these boys' father, who was a Baptist preacher, odd enough."

"It's no difference. She's called as often by one name as the other," said Timberlake. "But the Jameses are cute. I doubt if they'll ever make any divvy of the Winston swag. What's their next move? That's what we're after."

"The gang, or part of 'em, start for Jasper County, this State, the day after to-morrow," said Sheppard. "I'm to be one of 'em to look out in advance for detectives, and give warnin' of the same."

And he burst into a laugh.

"What's the racket?"

"A descent on the bank either at Empire City or Sin that county," was the reply. "As I'll be sent forward in advance, and they'll be sure to reconnoitre at Empire City first, you'd better all be lyin' in wait at S- . The towns are only a few miles apart. I can slip you a telegraphic dispatch as to what place to be on the lookout for 'em."

"Good!" cried Timberlake. "We'll be on hand, all of us, shall we not, boys?"

The rest of us unanimously fell in with the scheme, and the conference broke up.

After a few words in private with George Sheppard, I was the last to leave the cabin. Before doing so I said to old Cynthy:

"Are you still so sure, Cynthy, of my never recovering poor Blanche's little boy, Tip?"

"Oh, Lor', yes, cunel; dead sure ob cat!" replied the old creature, rolling up the yellows of her eyes. "Dat debble, Jess James, hab put de pore little chit out ob de way long afore dis. De ole jedge, fur all his money, 'll nebber lay eyes on his little gran'chile."

"You'll think otherwise before long, Cynthy, depend upon it. But in case I should be able to produce the child -- bring him here to your cabin -- would you be able to identify him as the judge's grandson? I mean to say, would you know him again?"

"Know him -- know Missus Blanche's boy? Go long, cunnel! Ob course I would. Why, I brung him up. He war nigh onto two year when he war stole, an he ain't half past five now. Know him ag'in -- pore Blanche's chile -- de little Tip Younger? Lor' bless my soul! What you done took me fur, cunnel?"

"Well, that's all I wanted to know," said I, wishing her good-night; "and I'm glad I've made sure of it."

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER VI. A Bold Raid -- Jesse James' Cunning

Three or four days after this, we detectives were gathered together in a small saloon in the town of S-- , anxiously awaiting news from George Sheppard.

At about the same time of day -- say ten in the morning -- Jesse and Frank James, Jim Cummings, Dick Little, Wood and Jeff Hite, and Ed Miller, all veteran desperadoes, accompanied by George Sheppard, approached the neighboring town of Empire City, by the wild, hilly country from the northeast. They were all more or less disguised, though they wore no masks; Jesse James' boast to me of never under any circumstances wearing a disguise having been a piece of empty braggadocia entirely devoid of truth.

This party of scoundrels halted at an exceptionally lonely point on the road, within less than a mile of the town. Then George Sheppard was sent forward to reconnoitre. He was instructed to take his time, and return with a report as to the number of armed men, if any, to be seen about the streets, and especialy as to the character of the bank's interior, the number of officials, the number of customers likely to be met with by a raiding party, and the like.

But Jesse James did not yet thoroughly trust Sheppard. Shortly after the latter had set out upon his mission, Ed Miller was dispatched to track and watch him. His orders were to leave his horse at the entrance of the town, and thence to follow up Sheppard's movements secretly. In case of any symptoms of treachery he was to hurry back with his report, so as to precede the return of Sheppard, who, in that case, was to be put to death as soon as he should again show up.

Ed Miller was trusted implicitly. He was a veritable enthusiast in his iniquitous career. The service assigned to him was faithfully performed in less than an hour. He then returned to the rendezvous with convincing proof of Sheppard's treachery. The latter had been closely shadowed from place to place in the town. He had at last been seen to send a telegraphic dispatch to S-- , after which he had sauntered away and entered the bank building.

Miller, a few minutes later, had ascertained at the telegraph station that Sheppard's dispatch had been ad

dressed to "G. H. Timberlake," at S-- . This was enough.

Miller had hurried back to his comrades with this momentous piece of news. But before they could recover breath from the momentary excitement into which it had thrown them, George Sheppard appeared on the road in his turn, riding directly toward them.

"Shut up, all of you!" called out Jesse James, in a hoarse whisper. "Try to look careless till we get him in our clutches. Don't let him dream that we suspect him."

But Sheppard, though only one-eyed, was as wide-awake as Jesse himself. He had already perceived that something was wrong, and had, consequently, come to a halt within a couple of hundred yards of the band.

"Why don't you come on?" at last shouted Jesse, himself first losing his self-control in his thirst for revenge. "What are you afraid of?"

Then Sheppard was morally certain that his doubledealing had been found out. So, before wheeling his steed to become a fugitive, he leveled his revolver, drew a steady bead, and fired.

He paused long enough to see Jesse James clap his hand to his neck and reel in his saddle, and then dashed away at a break-neck gallop. Part of the band pursued him for a considerable distance, but without success, and the ex-robber succeeded in reaching the shelter of the town in safety, and in giving timely warning to the bank officials.

It was in consequence of these happenings that we, at S- , received two telegraphic not)fications from George Sheppard, about half an hour apart:

The first read as follows:

EMPIRE CITY, --- , 10:40 A. M.

"G. H. TIMBERLAKE: -- Gang are waiting my report on road about a mile away. From what I shall report to them, they will doubtless make the descent some time this morning. If you don't hear again from.me within an hour, come right on, blocking up the road leading to the northeast.

S."

The second dispatch, received just as we were getting out our horses, was as follows:

EMPIRE CITY, --- , 11:20 A. M.

"G. H. TIMBERLAKE: -- Gang have shadowed and found me out. Have just shot Jesse James off his horse, with a bullet in the neck. Sha'n't dare to leave this place without your escort. Come right on. Suppose gang has scattered.

S."

Timberlake had no sooner read the last dispatch to himself than he threw up his hat and cheered. Then, after he had read it aloud to us, we also threw up our hats and cheered. However, notwithstanding my first feeling of keen disappointment, I at once began to have my doubts as to the certainty of Sheppard having "done for" Jesse James.

"Hooray!" shouted Timberlake. "Whether we bag the rest of 'em or not, Jesse James, the head devil of the game, is no more. That ought to satisfy us. Come on. We'll ride over to Empire City and see Sheppard safe out of it."

We rode out of S-- together. Timberlake's exuberance seemed to be shared by all the rest, myself alone excepted. But why they should all so suddenly jump to the conclusion that Jesse James was dead, when he might only have been wounded, was more than I could understand. Perhaps it was explained by their all wanting him dead so badly that the wish was father to the thought.

Soon after we had taken our leisurely way toward Empire City, we met a large drove of lean, widehorned Texas steers that were being driven across the State.

Not long after they had passed we heard a great shouting and bursts of coarse laughter up the road. Five or six rough-looking horsemen, wearing dusky blouses and huge slouched hats, apparently Texan cowboys, and drunk at that, were gathered about a madly-plunging steer, which had been made temporarily fast with ropes, while they likewise seemed to be tying something on its back.

The meaning of the odd scene was soon explained to us.

We had just time to shrink back to either side of the road when the suddenly liberated steer came charging down the road in the direction of S-- . The cowboys were behind in full career, yelling, cursing, and screaming with brutal laughter. Blood was in the steer's, eye, frenzy in his tossing horns; and, firmly lashed to his back, kicking, writhing, and shrieking piteously, was a poor devil of a Chinese basketpeddler, who had thus been pinioned to make a Missouri holiday.

"Cl'ar the track!" shouted one of the ruffians, as he dashed by us with his comrades in pursuit. "How's this for a Chinese Mazeppa, hey?"

"An infernally cruel piece of sport!" exclaimed Timberlake, following the steer and horseman with his eyes.

"A mild enough one, though, for Texas drovers to engage in," said Craig, with a laugh. "Come, let's ride back and see the upshot of it. There'll be a healthy excitement as they pass through the long main street of the town."

As he suited the action to the word, and the distance was not great, we followed him.

We reached the crest of a rise in the road overlooking the town, and not far from it, just as the steer dashed into the main street, with the ruffians in pursuit.

"Hello! Cruel or not cruel, it's a jolly row they're kicking up," cried Craig, who had been a Texas boy himself in his day. "Lord, look at the people scatter! There's an apple cart upset, and now the bull is charging its tormentors in his turn. What life there is in the Chinaman! How he kicks and squirms! Hallo! There's one of the cowboys unhorsed! No; he's up and away again! There go the big horns through a showwindow. Now he's charging across the street again. By Jupiter! By Jupiter! but he can't be going through there, and with those screaming devils after him. But he is, though, and no mistake! Come along, boys, we must see the end of this. Some of the bank officials may be hurt. This is pushing a mad game too far."

We at once galloped after him down the hill. His last expression had been called forth by the maddened steer disappearing into the wide doorway of the National Bank of S-- , followed by his yelling pursuers, one after the other.

As we approached the bank building, a few minutes later, we heard a couple of shots, and made sure that the steer had been shot down somewhere in among the desks and money counters.

Then, with some difficulty, by reason of the excited crowd in the street, we approached the doors. As we did so, we heard the shouting cowboys galloping away by another street, or lane, having made their exit from the bank by a back doorway.

A scene of woeful havoc and confusion presented itself as we dismounted and pushed our way into the bank.

The steer had fallen from exhaustion at the farther end of the broad passage reaching around the desks and counters, with the Chinaman, now in a faint, still fastened to his back, and was frothing at the mouth, while still swaying his great breadth of horns to and fro defiantly. The glass doors were smashed front and back, one of the counters overturned, and the blackwalnut panels of the partition broken through in places.

But worse than this, the floor inside of the partitions about the open doors of the money-vault, was strewn with a confused litter of torn documents, tattered packages of bank bills, rifled tin boxes, and even scattered gold coin.

Worse still, amid this litter, supported by two bystanders, lay the unconscious form of a whitehaired, venerable gentleman, with the blood rushing from a ghastly pistol-shot wound in the breast. At the foot of a near desk, amid the remains of a shivered high office stool, lay another unconscious figure -- that of a bookkeeper -- senseless from a terrible blow, doubtless with the butt of a revolver, on the top of the head; while another and younger clerk was still cowering underneath a desk a little farther off, though more frightened than hurt.

"Great Lord!" exclaimed Timberlake, in a bewildered, stupefied tone, as we all took in this scene of destruction and horror at a glance. "Can this have been the work of these cowboys?"

"Cowboys!" sneered one of the bystanders, with an oath. "A sweet-scented lot of detectives you are, the hull lot of you! Couldn't you tumble to the trick they were playing you and the rest of us, with the wild steer and the Chinaman? Cowboys! Bah! They were the James boys and their gang, in disguise -- that's what they were! And they're off now, with ten thousand dollars out of that vault in their saddlebags, leavin' the old cashier shot through the heart, and the bookkeeper with a fractured skull."

"Quick, boys! To horse, and after 'em!" yelled Timberlake, making a break for the door.

Scarcely less mortified than he, we followed. A moment later we were in the saddle, galloping madly in the direction the bank robbers had taken, and heedless of the townspeople's jeers that greeted our departure.

Our pursuit was not continued long, however, before we were convinced that there was no chance of its success. The robbers had gained the broken country to the south of the town, and the hills might as well have swallowed them up, for all the opportunity that was afforded us for overtaking, or even getting sight of them.

We returned to S-- , crestfallen and broken-spirited in the middle of the afternoon. It was to find the bank cashier dead, and the bookkeeper in a critical condition by reason of his wounds. An examination of the bank's funds, however, had been made by several of the directors, showing that the robbers had carried off between fifteen and eighteen thousand dollars.

We questioned several persons who had a good look at the robbers, and who were familiar with the personal appearance of the James brothers. All these witnesses concurred in assuring us that Jesse James was not among the gang who had effected the robbery, though they had all fully identified both Frank James and Jim Cummings as prominent participants in the affair.

This would seem to support Sheppard's declaration that he had succeeded in giving the redoubtable Jesse James his quietus. Sheppard stoutly reiterated his assertion when we saw him at Empire City, on the evening of that same eventful, disastrous day, and he gave us the succinct account of his own adventure with the outlaws with which this chapter was opened.

I will not dwell needlessly on the added blaze of excitement which this bank robbery created in Missouri and the adjoining States.

For the ensuing month, or more, the dreaded band kept so quiet and invisible that they were thought and hoped by many to have permanently quitted the State. In this impression some of the detectives and officers, perhaps the majority, concurred, while others did not. I was among those who did not think so.

A still larger majority believed in the report, soon widespread, that Jesse James, the robber chief, had been killed. Ford, Gorham and I were about the only detectives who refused to take any stock in the report.

During that month, or six weeks, of apparent inactivity, we occupied ourselves with hunting down and bringing to justice the greenhorns who had participated in the Winston train robbery. In this connection, Sheppard and I were used to advantage as witnesses for identification. Upward of thirty arrests were made. They were made from among farmers' and townspeoples' sons who had been more or less distinguished for fastness and dis-orderly lives, many of them well-to-do and of good early training. Of this number, eight were brought to trial and conviction, with State prison sentences for long terms.

They were nearly all very hardened, though. Confessions as to their own guilt were not exceptions, but not one of them could be brought to "give away" the whereabouts of the veterans of the gang, or divulge anything else that might lead to pursuit and capture. They all, likewise, seemed to believe in Jesse James' death, some of them even shedding tears, as for the death of an ideal man. Indeed, he was their ideal, and men sincerely mourn such a loss, be it that of saint or thief, a noble patriot or a soulless, crimesteeped robber.

However, soon after the last of these minor convictions had taken place, Charley Ford came to me in Kansas City and said:

"There's a big thing over at headquarters, Lawson. Two young fellows have brought in a corpse, which they say is Jesse James', and for which they claim the 'dead or alive' rewards."

I looked up, incredulously.

"Fact!" he continued. "They claim that Sheppard's bullet in the neck only proved fatal yesterday; that they nursed him in a lone cabin up in the Blue Hills up to the moment of his death. Just before it occurred, they say, Jesse, out of gratitude for their kindnesses, told them to take the steps they were now taking with his dead body, in order to secure for themselves the heavy rewards offered."

This part of the news touched me "on the raw," so to speak, and I started to my feet.

"Come on over," resumed Ford. "All our crowd are there, including the sheriff and the police commissioner. They all take stock in the young fellow's statement, too. They are waiting for you to identify the remains as Jesse's before giving the lads the certificate on which to claim the rewards."

I regarded the story as preposterous. But, eager as I was to prove it so, I hated to spare the time just then. I had got what I thought was a clew to judge Rideau's grandchild, which I had been on the point of following up when Ford interrupted me. However, I accompanied him at once.

"Either you or Sheppard could identify the corpse, if it is really Jesse James', as well as I," I suggested, on the way.

"Sheppard might, but he's up-country just now," was the reply. "As for me, when I last saw Jesse he hadn't grown the beard that he's been credited with since. I can't be certain, but the face staring up out of the pine coffin over yonder looks wonderfully like Jesse's would, if dead instead of alive."

This answer shook my unbelief more than anything else he had said.

A great crowd was gathered about headquarters as we approached. There was also at the entrance a mudsplashed team and wagon, by which the lads had come in from the hills with their melancholy freight.

The large, bare room back of the office was crowded with citizens and policemen as Ford and I made our way into it. They were pressing around a rude, rough-board coffin that lay upon trestles in the center. The coffin had been uncovered. Near its head stood the beardless but hard-looking young men who had brought it there. Timberlake, Craig, Masters and others of my profession were in close proximity.

"Room there for Bill Lawson," cried Craig, as I approached. "Here's the man who can and will identify this dead face as Jesse James', if any one can."

The crowd made way for me. As I approached the open head of the coffin, I steadily studied the faces of the two young fellows. Neither recognized me. I hadn't taken the trouble to inquire what names they had given themselves, feeling sure that they had made use of aliases.

Then, amid a general hush of expectancy, my eyes rested upon the inanimate coffined face.

It was but for an instant. I raised them again, with a contemptuous laugh.

"Hello! What's up?" cried Timberlake. "Ain't the body Jess James'?"

"Not a bit of it, though there's a slight resemblance," I replied. "The outlaw is in a new role when he tries to sell his own corpse to the authorities. How are you, Master Cutts? How are you, Master Larry the Lamb?"

The persons addressed were, indeed, none other than the young desperadoes I had named, the former still looking thin and worn, as though but recently recovered from my bullet through the body.

They turned pale at my offhand recognition, and seemed to be gathering themselves together for a rush through the crowd; but I had them covered with my revolver in an instant, and they were at once seized and handcuffed.

"Look out!" I shouted, while the utmost excitement for a moment took possession of every one in the room.

"Jesse James may be here among us at this very instant!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" hoarsely laughed a big, uncouth-looking fellow, with his face nearly concealed by the brim of a huge soft hat, as he slouched carelessly toward the door. "Trick or no trick, it was one that none but a bold cuss would have tried."

I recognized the voice, in spite of his attempt to disguise it.

"That's Jess James!" I shouted, springing forward, pistol in hand, with my comrades at my back. "Seize him! Shoot him down!"

"Come on!" replied the outlaw, dashing off his hat and brandishing a revolver, while he backed through the door. "Come on, if you dare!"

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER VII. The Missing Child -- Jesse and His Gang Awake After a Long Sleep

It was, indeed, Jesse, the outlaw himself, who had secretly watched the whole scene about his alleged remains, and who would, doubtless, have quickly appropriated the reward, had they been paid over to his youthful satellites.

The crack of a dozen revolvers saluted his exit from the big room, and as many bullets went whistling after him. But he was not the fated billet to stop any of them just then. We dashed after him in a body. But he had already shouldered his way through the crowded outer room, and by the time we reached the open air, the outlaw had already bounded across the broad thoroughfare to where his matchless sorrel was standing, and vaulted into the saddle.

"Good-by, Lawson!" he shouted to me, as he galloped away amid an ineffectual shower of bullets. "I know you now, and the doctor's dodge you played on me. We shall be once more together alone -- and for the last time."

We did not attempt an instant pursuit, but made the best of our disappointment and bad humor.

Both Cutts and Larry the Lamb, whose real name was understood to be Finken, subsequently made a confession as to their share in the attempted deception. According to this confession, Jesse James had only been slightly wounded in the back of the neck by Sheppard's bullet. Instantly upon receiving the wound, however, there had occurred to the outlaw the plot of feigning death, in furtherance of the elaborate subsequent scheme, which, perhaps, but for me, would have been carried to a successful issue.

He, therefore, on receiving the trifling wound, threw up his hands and reeled in his saddle, for George Sheppard's especial benefit. The latter, however, was no sooner out of sight than the outlaw leader, while his neck was being bound up with some handkerchiefs by Miller, proceeded to plan out the attack on the bank in the neighboring town of S-- . Still intent on his scheme of pretended death, he had, however, taken no active part in this robbery. It was carried out, in the unique manner I have described, by the rest of the gang under the leadership of Frank James and Jim Cummings.

The successful scoundrels had subsequently joined Jesse in the Blue Hills, whither he had gone, accompanied by Miller. Here a division of the booty was made. The gang had then been temporarily dispersed, Jesse remaining alone in a remote and deserted cabin unlit accompanied there by the youths, Cutts and Larry the Lamb, for whom he had sent, and who were both blindly devoted to him.

Here they lived in secret, supported by the game with which the wild region abounded, and biding the development of the plot. One thing was indispensable -- a corpse that could be palmed off as Jesse's with any reasonable chance of success. Even this was not a great while forthcoming.

At the end of five or six weeks of seclusion Jim Cummings sent up to the hermitage in the Blue Hills one Pat Moriarty, who had once belonged to the gang, but had severed his connection therewith, after a quarrel with the outlaw leader over the division of some booty, and, strangely enough, he resembled Jesse not a little. That resemblance doubtless determined Cummings' action, and was chiefly instrumental in sealing poor Moriarty's fate.

The latter sought the hermitage under the impression that Jesse wanted to renew friendly relations. Indeed, he was received with every appearance of cordiality. None the less, however, did a convenient game of cards engross the reunited worthies without loss of time. A quarrel, with high words, ensued. Then an accusation on the part of the Irishman who was being outrageously cheated with intentional clumsiness. Then Jesse's ready revolver put in its conclusive remark, and -- the desired dead man was furnished, ready for delivery.

Such was the brief history of one of the most originally daring plots in the annals of crime, and, which, perhaps, only miscarried by the merest chance; for the outlaw's female relatives, if conversant with the scheme would doubtless have identified falsely, if called upon.

Cutts and Larry the Lamb, on being brought to trial, were promptly convicted of participation in many crimes, partly on my evidence and partly on their own confessions, and were sentenced to prodigiously long terms in the State prison.

We had by this time pretty thoroughly weeded out the farmer-boy associations of the outlaws, as their hairbrained youthful admirers and emulators might be denominated. Hereafter, for a certain time at least, the veterans of the band had to be more cautious and circumspect in their movements. It was not long, however, before we discovered that the gang was still in the vicinity.

It was Gorham who gave the warning.

Meeting Ford and myself one day in Kansas City, he stopped us. He was greatly excited.

"Hurry up!" he exclaimed. "Both Timberlake and Craig, with the rest, are waiting for you at headquarters. There's a big job on foot."

"What is it?" I asked, much interested.

"The hull James gang have arranged to stop and rob the west-bound express this side of Topeka, in the Red Cut this evening. We're to load up one of the cars with our men, and be ready to make it hot for 'm."

This was the sort of talk that suited me. I cheerfully accompanied him and Ford to headquarters, after getting rid of my peddler's disguise on the way.

Timberlake and the rest of the officers and detectives were already there, hastily preparing for the expedition, for it was now late in the afternoon.

"There's lively work ahead, gentlemen, even if this Red Cut trap should miss fire," said the sheriff, genially. "The Jameses and their crew are awake and wicked, like rattlesnakes after their winter's nap. Dick Little and another of their number have made overtures to me in the hope of a pardon and let out a whole bagful of secrets. If they get through with this affair, they next take in the Minnesota bank project, which they've long had in view. Come, hurry up, the train will be along in twenty minutes."

A car had already been provided for us by the railroad management. We entered it with seeming carelessness, one by one, without exciting undue outside attention. There were fifteen of us, all told. They included those to whom the reader has already been introduced, together with six special constables, stanch and experienced men, who could be relied on.

When the train came along our car was quietly incorporated with it, being placed in the front, next behind the express messenger's car. No intimation was given to any others on the train as to what was expected; and away we went.

Jesse James, the Outlaw

CHAPTER VIII. A Terrific Battle With the Outlaws

"Throw up your hands! Down from that engine, or my bullet's in your heart! Where's the express messenger?"

The words were sharp and explosive. The voice was that of Jesse, the outlaw. Our train had just been balked by a false signal in the Red Cut. By peering out of the car windows we could see the robbers, some dismounted, some still in the saddle, thronging both sides of the track, with the steep bluffs of the cutting at their backs. The dusk of evening was rapidly deepening.

"Quick -- you chaps that I named!" called out Timberlake, in a hoarse whisper. "To the front, Lawson! Craig will attend to the rear."

Our car had long before been especially altered for just this sort of an emergency. Timberlake arose while speaking, and pressed a spring over his head. A trapdoor in the roof of the car noiselessly opened. He shinned up through it like a cat, more clumsily followed by the six constables. In the meantime, while Craig headed a part of our remaining force toward the rear door, I stole forward, followed by Gorham, Ford, George Sheppard, and my personal satellites, Sloane and Chipps.

As I slid back the door, Cole Younger confronted me, revolver in hand. Others were at his back, still others were breaking into the express car, right ahead, and there was the customary pandemonium of curses, yells, and pistol-shots being raised on every side, for the purpose of creating a panic.

"Hello!" cried Cole, doubtless taking us for scared passengers trying to escape. "Back with you, or -- "

I knocked up his hand, shot down his immediate companion, and grabbing his throat, jerked him to his knees, and hurled him back among my comrades.

"Secure that one!" I shouted. "If he gives any trouble, kill him!"

This was a mistaken move for me. Shots were immediately exchanged behind me, and Younger engaged in such a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with my followers that I stepped out upon the platform almost alone.

Two robbers had just clambered on the opposite platform, one of whom drew a bead on me and fired. I shrank to one side in time, but the shot intended for me struck Sloane, who was behind me, and he fell with a groan. I then dropped his assailant dead on the couplings, and, with another shot, disabled his companion so that he tumbled off the left-hand side all of a heap.

Then, as I jumped off on the other side, and ran to the assistance of the express messenger, who, though wounded, was bravely defending the broken sideentrance of his car against Jesse James, Frank James, and Jim Cummings; the wildest confusion prevailed.

Timberlake and his constables were promiscuously shooting down upon the ruffians from the top of the car, while Craig and his men had just issued from the rear, and were opening fire in every direction with good effect.

It was evident that a panic had seized the bandits in their turn. They had been completely taken by surprise, and the majority of them were already wavering.

As I rushed to the messenger's assistance, I fired another shot that only grazed Frank James' cheek, and at the same instant the messenger was pitched headlong out of his bravely defended car, with Jesse James' bullet in his heart.

Then, Cummings and Frank James being at that instant suddenly engaged by Chipps and Gorham, who had succeeded in following me, I drew a fresh bead on Jesse. At the instant of firing, however, one of his panic-stricken subordinates rushed in between us, receiving my bullet in his skull.

That was the last shot in my first repeater, and there was no time to draw my second. Nevertheless, before the outlaw leader could fire in return, I flew at his throat, grappling him so closely that the could not use the weapon.

To and fro, backward and forward we swayed and struggled silently amid the deadly din and confusion, until at last I tripped over a prostrate body under the windows of the second car, and went down on my back.

But my lucky star was in the ascendant on that eventful evening. The outlaw's knee was on my breast, his revolver at my head; I could see the baleful glitter of his eyes, and hear the gritting of his teeth. At that instant, however, a dead constable toppled over from the roof of the car, crushing my assailant to the earth, and giving me another chance for my life.

Nevertheless, he was on his feet again as soon as I, and again his repeater covered me.

"Curse you! do you carry a charmed life?" he hissed, through his gnashing teeth. "But now -- this time you are doomed!"

But again he reckoned without my lucky star. A carwindow was suddenly slid up but two or three feet away and a woman's jeweled hand was thrust out, holding a small pocket-revolver in its delicate but firm grip.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed a silvery voice, as the timely little weapon flashed and barked in the outlaw's face. "I owe you an old score, Jesse James, on Dick's account, and here's one toward liquidation."

Jesse dodged the pill intended for him, but the flash momentarily blinded him, causing him to stagger back. Then a rush of his own retreating men making a break for their horses, separated us, the bullet that I sent after him from my second revolver passed harmlessly over his head, and I lost sight of him.

Bewildered, I turned a hasty glance toward the car. But the jeweled hand had been withdrawn, the window closed, and I could not distinguish the face that was behind it.

"I saw it all!" muttered Ford, passing by me, pistol in hand, and grasping my shoulder. "Your deliverer was Mattie Collins, Dick Little's wife. You can thank her afterward. Come! the villains are on the run."

"Go for their horses!" shouted Timberlake, making his way down from the car roof, followed by the remnants of his constables. "Bar 'em off from their horses, and we've got 'em all dead! I know the cabin they'll run to."

We at once rallied around him in a body, and made a combined rush for the horses of such of the outlaws as had dismounted. We could see them gathered in a knot, under the charge of some boys, on the top of the bluff.

The outlaws, with Jesse James at their head, were also making a rush in the same direction, and with the same object. But we fortunately intercepted them, beat them, and took possession of the animals, while the baffled robbers ran off into the woods, accompanied by their mounted associates.

As they did so, I remarked with bitter regret that Cole Younger was among them, and apparently not even disabled, though it was no fault of mine that he had not remained a captive.

I was the first to reach the horses, and I at once backed the finest one in the lot. This one, to my intense satisfaction, proved to be Dancer, the chief outlaw's sorrel favorite. There were nine more, which were quickly appropriated. Then leaving Craig with the remainder of our men, to look after the train, and to see to the forwarding of the dead, wounded, and captured to Topeka, we dashed away in the pursuit, under Timberlake's leadership.

A bright moon had risen with the falling of night, and the woo