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JIM CUMMINS FIRST EXPERIENCE OF WAR.

My first experience in the army was at Lexington, and while I was not enlisted, was there to take some food to my neighbor boys. The battle was raging fiercely and shells were bursting everywhere and men and horses were falling on all sides. I ran to a large white oak log accompanied by a negro who was with me and crawled back under the log as far as I could, told the negro to come under also as it was safer under there. We had not been there long, when here came a Confederate officer and pulled the negro out saying, "Come out from under there. What in the hell are you doing anyway. Get up where you belong and don't let me see you-around here anymore." I thought then my time had come. Seeing my foot he gave me a jerk saying, "Come out you dam-scoundrel. How in the hell do you expect to kill any Yankees under there." I came out and with my Remington revolver in my hand I said, "Don't you lay your hand on me or I'll blow your brains out. I don't belong to no army and ain't going to stand out here to be killed by a Yankee bullet." From that day on I was keen to join the army and while I was too young. kept on trying till I finally succeeded. Having looked the situation over I determined to join the worst devil in the bunch. Frank James had joined Quantrell's band. While-he was fierce he was nothing to compare with that terrible Bill Anderson, so I decided it was Anderson for me as I wanted to see blood flow in revenge for the outrages the jayhawkers had committed. I joined Anderson in the spring of 1862 and was with him until he was killed when Arch Clemmens took charge of the company.

JOINS THE CONFEDERATE ARMY, HIS FIRST FIGHT

In the year 1863 I was sworn into the Confederate service under Colonel Calhoun Thornton and was attached to Fletcher Taylor's Company, as he was making up an independent company I was detailed to Thornton's company. While he was recruiting his regiment there was a militia Captain by the name of Fitzgerald stationed at Ridgely, Platte County, Mo., who was causing a good deal of trouble for the southern people. He was burning their homes and stealing. Thornton thought he would see if he could not put a stop to this so he detailed Captain Overton with eight men to go down there and see what he could do. I happened-to be one of the men whom he sent there. The rest of them were from Platte County. Thornton made out some kind of a paper to be handed to Fitzgerald and gave it to Overton. While he was reading it we were ordered to change our dress to the Federal uniform. Then we proceeded to go to Platte County. We got there alright and Overton our leader handed the paper given him by Thornton. We found Fitzgerald and his men lined up with loaded guns in their hands one hundred men strong and ready for action at a moments notice. Fritzgerald began to read the paper handed to him by Overton.

While he was thus engaged Lieutenant Fielding, thinking something was wrong and seeing that Overton's nerve was failing him, ordered the men to draw their pistols and begin firing on us. Captain Overton was killed at once and Lieutenant Fielding was wounded but he managed to escape at the time but was captured the next day. I was slightly wounded, but not enough to cause me not to escape. This was my first experience in a fight. Lieutenant Fielding who was wounded and captured the next day by the enemy was treated very cruelly. They dug a large hole in the ground and laid a log across it and then tied the poor wounded man. to it and shot him. Then he was thrown roughly into the grave and the dirt was thrown in upon him. We were running away from one hundred men and several of us were wounded but the most of us succeeded in making our escape. That being my first experience, my next was when Fletcher Taylor took it upon himself to put down a burning of homes and killing carried on by a man named Bigelow who had a name as bad as Fritzgerald if not worse. We proceeded to Bigelow's home and found him at home with a brother of his with him. We were not going to molest his brother because he had not done anything that caused us to want him, but he put up a fight to help his brother so we had to deal with him also. They fought hard and we could not take them alive so they were both shot. I can never forget his poor little twelve year old girl. She followed us for a little ways as we left the house, praying and telling us what would become of us for killing her poor father. But it could not be helped. Sometimes I think I can hear her cries as she followed along behind us.

A short time after we left the house of Bigelow's a Mexican Captain came up to it by the name of Rogers. He told Mrs. Bigelow that he would hunt us down and kill us, and asked her if she knew of any of the men who. had killed her husband. She said that she did not. Captain Roger, Tiffin and Kemper followed. Bill Ander- son followed. Bill Anderson came upon them and fought and held his own with them on Blackwater. Then Roger and Kemper dismounted so as to bush-whack us as we came up but Bill Anderson outwitted them and left them there waiting for him. He then came upon Tiffin again who had one hundred men with him and Anderson only had fifty four men and ran him under cover. When Roger and Kemper found out that Tiffin had been whipped they wanted to hide when Anderson arrived in Howard County. He was inforced here by thirty good men and he drew them up in line and told them what the Clay County boys had done since he had left Clay county. How they had whipped Tiffin and ran him under cover and then left Roger and Kemper waiting in ambush for him. Then all the Guerrilla forces were brought up in line together, Quantrell, Todd, Poole, Gordon, Major Fraykill and Bill Anderson.

Then Bill Anderson was elected and put in full command. Now Anderson started on the Centralia road. He detailed fifteen men, all being from Clay County, as advance guard, and put Arch Clemmens in command of it. He told him not to spare a man whom they saw that wore a blue coat and when he was on to any of the Federals to fight them until they had to surrender or was whipped. History has already shown what he did at Centralia. He had eighty five men there, fifty four being from Clay County. Today there are only three of these men living, they being Frank James, Rich Elington and myself. Bill Anderson was a desperate man and a reckless fighter. There was one reason that I liked him and that was because he always stood up for the Clay County boys. I remember once when a Colorado Captain sent word to Quantrell that he would like to meet and fight him either in the brush or in the open. Quantrell at the time was not present but the message or rather the challenge was handed over to George Todd, who was in command of a company of his own which consisted of sixty five men. Just as he was about to' send word back to the Colorado Captain that he would meet and fight him Bill Anderson road up with nine of his Clay County boys.

Todd told him about the challenge and said that he was glad to see him and that he only wished that he had the rest of his company there. Ander- son said tat he also wished that he had the rest of them and if he did that he would fight them with them. The answer was then sent back and the Colorado Captain was told that he would be met and they would do the fighting in the open and that he .did not have to meet him' in the brush. The Colorado Captain had one hundred and ten men with him and Todd had only seventy five men counting the nine men which Anderson had. Todd put Anderson in command of the whole company of seventy five men and they started out to meet the Colorado Captain. They meet him near the farm of Judge Graves in Jackson 'County. We killed the Captain from Colorado and about half of his men and soon had them re- treating as fast as they could and we had only seventy five men while he had one hundred and ten. We had to fight hard but by doing that we were the winners, although we lost many of our bravest men. The Colorados were mounted on gray horses and had red blankets under their saddles. I was riding a 'big gray horse myself and after that fight I never wanted to ride a gray horse or see a red blanket. 'Todd called the battle ground Bone Hill. It was certainly a bad day for the Colorado captain, but 'he never lived to know it, being killed at the very beginning of the fight. -

WHY I JOINED THE ARMY.

In the year of 63 I was at home in Clay county, Missouri with my mother. I had two brothers in the Southern Army who came home to see my mother and she was accused of harboring bush-whackers. Her neighbor boys who were in the army would come to see her and she would feed them and she was accused of feeding bush-whackers. They accused my uncle, who had never taken any part in the war, of harboring bush-whackers and took him from the threshing machine and shot him and then jumped their horses over him and left the prints of the horses shoes on his body. The men were afraid to bury him and he was buried by my mother with the help of the negroes. My mother was afraid to leave myself and my younger brother at home long. She sent my sister to take my younger brother to a friend in Kansas and she was going to send my older sister to take me to California. I saw my mother crying and Captain Younger came with an order from Col. Pennick to my mother to get ready to leave the state within fifteen days and seeing my mother crying and in such distress, that, as Fletch Taylor had just come in recruiting for Bill Anderson's guerrilla company, I joined his company. Then I went to Mrs. Younger and told her that Capt. Younger had just ordered my mother to leave the state and if my mother had to leave she (Mrs. Younger) might just as well prepare to leave also. She asked me where I got my authority, that Capt. Younger had gotten his orders from Col. Pennick, and I said, "I got mine from Bill Anderson." She defied me saying, "Why Jim, do you think you can make me leave?" I said, "Do you think Capt. Younger can make my mother leave?" She said, "how would you make me leave " I said "If my mother has to leave, her house might just as well be burned for the weeds would grow up and it would burn anyway and so I would just throw a straw tick on your stairway and set fire to it and you can use your own pleasure about staying." Capt. Pennick then came to my mother and told her if she would take an oath not to feed those bushwhackers she could stay and she told him she would feed her boys and friends as long as she lived. Then later when he learned that Bill Anderson had told me if my mother had to leave to burn the home of every Union man in the country, he came back and told her (my mother) that she could stay. And my mother remained at home.

THE KILLING OF QUANTRELL'S BROTHER.

In the year 1855 Quantrell and his brother were camped in the woods on Little Cotton Wood when some Kansas Red Legs came upon them. Quantrell's brother was killed and Quantrell himself was left wounded and very near deaths door. You can imagine how Quantrell felt laying there with almost dead. Early in the morning of the third day after his brother to one side of him dead and him wounded and the Red Legs had been there Quantrell managed to drag him- self back from the river to the road. Then in a short time an old Shawnee Indian by the name of Golightly Spiebuck happened along that way and found Quantrell lying there wounded and almost dead. Quantrell told him about his dead brother and the good Indian went to bury him taking Quantrell back with him. It took him four hours to dig the grave deep enough to bury the dead man in but he finally got it deep enough and the poor man was placed in it and buried as nicely as possibly as could be done without a coffin or shroud which they did not have. The dead man was so ghastly white that he looked to the Indian as if the ghost of the departed had come back to claim a decent burial. Quantrell lay and watched the corpse until the dirt covered it and then he painfully got upon his knees and, turning his dry eyes towards where he thought a God was, he offered up a prayer. Did he pray? Yes, like a Caligula perhaps and that the whole jayhawking fraternity had but a single neck capable of being severed by a single blow.

When Raudoff and Collins were arrested and taken to St. Louis, how the Pinkertons boasted. They had them guarded by the entire police force of St. Louis and this guard was backed up by the Pinkerton detective force. How they boasted about it. But after all of this boasting Raudoff broke out of jail and made his escape. Then the banks and railroads and Express companies offered another big reward for the recapture of him. I have been told that the Pinkertons spent over thirty thousand dollars a month of the money furnished them by the banks and railroads and express companies in trying to recapture him and Collins and I don't know how much secret service money was used, but I suppose it amounted to a great deal. And now Mr. Pinkerton I want to ask you how it was that you caught those two men. I can tell you: Raudoff was playing hobo in Kansas and robbed a railroad station up there somewhere and was arrested, not by you, but by a sheriff and some men up there in Kansas. He was tried and sentenced to a term in the Kansas Penitentiary. Then you heard that he had been caught up there and what did you do? You sent up there and got him and took him to St. Louis and let him get away from you. He did not belong to Quantrell's Guerrillas or had anything to do with the James or Younger gangs. These men were afterwards arrested and hung for the murder of Detective Shoemaker. "Now there is the Leeds train robbery, when you had Young Jesse James, Andy Ryan and Charley Poke arrested. Then how you boasted. Governor Crittendon, Craig and Timberlake had hired the Fords to kill Jesse James for money. They turned traitors and did the dirty work of' killing poor Jesse who had been their friend and companion for so long: You had Young Jesse James arrested for that train robbery.

How many detectives did you have out at work when you arrested Young Jesse? How many people did you have thrown into sweat boxes, trying to make them tell something about the Leeds train robbery You and Chief Hayes together done this. I have heard that Aunt Sussie, the old nigger woman of the Youngers and Kit Rose, the girl niece of Cole Younger, were put into sweat boxes by Chief Hayes, through your agency, trying to make them tell something about the Leeds train robbery. You might have kept the there all their life and you could not have made them tell anything about it, even if they had known anything about it and I don't know but I don't think they knew anyone who was concerned in the affair. I was in Kansas City about that time and when I returned to Eureka a man who had just came from Kansas City told me about the robbery and the arrest of Young Jesse James and said that it was lucky for me that I was at my sisters in Vernon 'County at that time or they would have arrested me. I asked him how he knew this. He said that he heard the Pinkerton's talking about it in Kansas City. I then asked him how many detectives the Pinkertons 'had on this case. He said he did not know but there were a good many he thought, and so do I. Now I told him that since Mr. Pinkerton wanted and thought he knew so much about the robbery and where I was at the time of the robbery, I would tell him that I was not at my sisters as was I at Eureka at the time it happened. Now if he would just take the trouble to look up today and find out the day when the Leeds train robbery occurred, if he has such a shrewd detective force I would like for him to tell me just where I was on that day. If I had been arrested for the robbery I could have proven just where I was on the day it happened.

 Why didn't he tell those Chief Police at the Jamestown exposition when he made that great speech there about the arrest of Young Jesse James. The simple reason that he did not was because he could not say anything about the conviction of him. In the spring of 1880 they came down and ran me out of my little home in Arkansas. I then went to Nashville, Tenn., and visited the James Boys. I stayed with them for a few weeks and then decided that I would go over to Samuels Depot and visit my old friend Pence the sheriff of the county. Samuels Depot was about six miles from Bardstown. I arrived at his house in the night. He asked me if I had seen anything' of Detective Todhunter as I passed through Bards town. I told him that I may have seen him but if I did I did not recognize him. He told he that Todhunter was on my track and that he was shrewder than any of the Pinkertons. I told him that probably I had better leave that night and I did so. The next morning I got word from Mrs. Pence that Mr. Todhunter was at a store not a hundred yards away from their house watching for me to come to their house. I thought that since Mr. Todhunter was so smart that I would just fool him a little so I dressed up like a tramp walked over to Mrs. Pence and asked her if she would please give me something to eat. She gave me something to eat and then made me carry in some wood for her. Then she put me up a lunch in paper and I walked away and Mr. Todhunter was sitting on the porch in front of the store looking at me as I walked away and did not recognize me, but just suppose he had I would have been in a nice fix then. If -he had tried to have arrested me then he would have. found the liveliest time doing it that he ever encountered in his life for I had two Colts forty fives concealed upon me and I would have certainly used them on him. I stayed a week at Mr. Pences house after this. I told Mr. Todhunter that I had been there for a whole week and that if Mr. Pinkerton and his whole force could not catch me in Missouri he need not try to do so. After I left, thinking I had made a little too big a banter to those men, I sold my horse and. hired to an old man to hoe cotton for fifty cents a day. I stayed three months with him, and when I left and told them good bye, I hated to leave.

 One half of the country believed Quantrell to have been a highway robber, crossed with a tiger, the other half believed him to have been an avenging nemesis of the right, the forbidding monster of assassination. History cannot hesitate over him however nor abandon him to the imagination of the romancers, those cosmopolitan people who personify him as the type of a race, which reappears in every country, 'that is a prey to the foreigner, the legitimate bandit in conflict. With conquest he was a living, breathing, aggressive, all powerful reality riding through the midnight, laying ambuscades by lonesome roadsides catching marching columns by the throat, breaking in upon the flanks and tearing a suddenly surprised rear to pieces mercilessly. By day he was a terror and a superhuman if not a supernatural thing when there was blackness and darkness upon the earth. Charles William Quantrell was, to the Guerrillas, their voice in tumult, their beacon in a crisis and their hand n action. From him sprang all other Guerrilla leaders and bands which belong largely to Missouri and the part Missouri took in the Civil war. Todd owed primary allegiance to him and so did Scott, Haller, Anderson, Blunt, Poole, Younger, Maddox, Garrette, the two James brothers Jesse and Frank, Shepherd, Yager, Hulse, etc., all in fact who became noted. afterwards as enterprising soldiers and fighters. His was the central figure and it towered aloft amid all the wrecks and overthrows and massacres that went on continually around him until it fell at last as the pine falls uprooted and shivered when struck by a thunder-bolt. It was part of Quantrell's band of Guerrillas that followed Shelby into Mexico after the war. It was Quantrell's men who took Inez Walker from Guaymas Rodriquez who had her in prison in his castle with thirty Mexicans around to guard her. Quantrell's men were the first one's to say go. They stole away from Shelby's camp at night. They battered down the doors of the castle and the Mexicans were killed by the dozens, old Guaymas Rodiquez being among the slain. Quantrell lost only five or six of his men and turned the poor woman free.

The poor woman, not knowing what to do at that time of night, accompanied Quantrell and his men to the camp of Shelby and there she was provided with a carriage in which to go home and was treated as if she had been a queen. I read Mr. William Pinkerton's speech at the Jamestown Expedition to the Chiefs of police, speaking of how Governor Crittenden had rid this state of the Missouri outlaws and stating that they were made up of Quantrell's Guerrilla Band. I think he made some grand errors. He stated that Gallatin was the first town robbed in Missouri and that Pinkertons men followed the robbers into Clay County. That was in September 1869. They wounded John Younger and arrested Clell Miller on the trip down there. Clell Miller was taken back to Gallatin and tried for that bank robbery but was acquitted. Then they came back with nine men with them. They brought a bomb along with them and this was thrown into the house of Mrs. Samuel, burning and killing her little nine year old boy and tearing off her arm. Two men were in the house at the time who I believe to have been Jesse James and Clell Miller. They came out and went to shooting at the Pinkertons, killing one and wounding another and it was said that all the rest ran away.

Now Mr. Pinkerton what did you accomplish and how much did you make out of the job and how much did the banks give you? You know, I don't. You say Gallatin was the first bank robbed but I say Liberty. You also said in that speech that on Feb., 14th 1866 Frank James was arrested by Sheriff Rickerds. I say that Frank James was never arrested until he handed his pistols to Govrenor Crittenden although Mr. Rickerds was backed up by the State militia and Pinkertons men back of them. Now you can not show where or when Rickerds or Pinkertons or any of his men ever arrested any man who claimed to have be- longed to the James or Younger Gang. You can not show today when any man belonging to the James or Younger Gangs were ever caught through the Pinkerton Agency. I don't know but I believe that I can safely and truthfully say that the Pinkertons have spent over half a million dollars of secret service money and that of banks and railroads and express companies in this way. Mr. Pinkerton why did you not catch Jack Bishop. He walked into the bank of Georgetown, Colorado and shot-Mi. Fish dead. They offered a reward of five thousand dollars for him. Then there was Jim White who walked into the bank of Independence, Mo., and robbed it when everybody knew him there. Then again there was Jack. Moore and Bill White who rode to Kentucky and made their home there and lived there and died there with a five thousand dollar reward hanging over their heads. Why didn't you catch Jim Berry when he passed through Kansas City, Mo., with twenty eight hundred dollars in gold. You had his full description. Then there was Cal Carter with ten thousand dollars hanging over his head. I don't like to boast but why didn't you come down into Barry County and catch me. I was down there in peace until you came down there at last and ran me out, but you did not catch me. Now I will speak of Mr. Rudolph, but he did not belong to the Missouri outlaws or the James or Younger gangs. Neither did Jack Kennedy, the quail hunter, nor did Collins. When Mr. Shoemaker went after Collins and Rudolph they killed him. After that you found out what Collins right name was and about where he lived, you stated in the papers that this world was not big enough for any man to live in who had killed a Pinkerton detective. Then you sent two or three men down to where he lived to arrest him and what did they do. They just waited around his home like an Indian would wait for a deer to shoot him. They hung around for three or four days before they tried to make any arrest. That was nice work wasn't it.

After the Glendale train robbery, the railroad and express companies and the banks offered a five thousand dollar reward for the capture of Ed Miller, Frank and Jesse James and myself. I expecting to leave that part of the country, went to see my mother, she being very sick and not expected to live. Some party had tried to steal a neighbor boy's horse and I was accused of it. This being the case I had to leave my mother and home and all the ones that were dear to me. George Shepherd, who had been arrested for the Russellville bank robbery, had been pardoned out of the Kentucky penitentiary and the Pinkertons were giving him a hundred dollars a month to aid them in the capture of me and others.

Then, this being the situation of things, I had to begin to hide out. My folks then sent for an aged aunt of mine, who they thought had more influence over me than anyone else, as my mother was sick in bed. She said to me, "Jim, don't you ever expect to leave this part of the country, when you know as well as anyone that the detectives and vigilant committee and sheriffs are after you to kill you. They have even told this so that I could get word of it, that they had a rope with them and as soon as they caught you they would string you up without a show or a fair trial." I told her, "Aunty, as you seem to be the mouth-piece for all of my connections, I want to tell you that I will leave this very night. I want to say to you right now that if I was half as big a fool as some people take me to be I would not be here talking to you tonight. I want you to tell them that I have disappeared as though the bow- els of the earth had swallowed me up or I had gone up in a cloud. I want you to tell them that they will all earn that five thousand dollars when they captured me. Just look at what they are doing.. Nine of Pinkerton's men came down here and threw a bomb into the house of Mrs. Samuel's which exploded and killed her poor little innocent nine year old boy and tore off her arm. They arrested Clell Miller and took him back to Gordon, Iowa for the Gordon bank robbery. It cost his father twenty five thousand dollars to defend him and then he was acquitted and sent back home in Clay county. They then sent some men to St. Clair county to arrest the Younger brothers and in a fight they killed John Younger, who was innocent of the charge they had against him and several of the detectives lost their lives. They then sent some down to Barry county to arrest me, I was living on a little farm there in peace. I met them on the train as I was trying to get away and they tried to arrest me but I reached up and pulled the bell-cord and stopped the train and. jumped out of the car through a window and ran away they shooting at me as I ran. And now I came down here to -see my poor mother, who is sick and not expected to live and now I have to leave the county where I was born and raised, which I promise you I will do this very night. Its blood money', Auntie, that they want. You can tell my neighbor boys that it is nothing but notoriety and blood money that they want but they will never gain either by the capture of me." I could not go to tell my poor good old mother good-bye so I told my aunt to go and do that for me as I did not think that I would ever see her again alive. I rode away that night with a very heavy and sad heart. The future did not look very bright for me and all the happenings of the past loomed up before me as I rode away that might.

I went to a friend of mine in Carroll county close to Norborne, by the name of John Poole. Arriving there about sunrise the next morning, I went to the barn to lay down to rest, having ridden all night and was very tired. I had just laid down when who should ride in but Frank James. He said, "Why, hello; Cummins, what are you doing here." I told him if he had went up to Clay county at the present time you would have soon found out what I was doing here." He then said, "Dingest," meaning Jesse, "and Tom and Bud McDaniels have just gone to Clay County." I said, "Frank at this present time they will find a very warm reception up there." We now decided to cross the river at Waverly, Frank having said he would travel with me for a time, in the evening so we could have the cover of darkness for our ride after crossing the river. Just as we were saddling up our horses, we saw three men ride by on fine horses and they had masks on. Frank said to me, "Hell's' to pay somewhere, and you had better go up to Norborne and see what you can learn," I told him if he wanted anyone to go to Norborne you can go your- self and I am a little shaky about going across the river in that boat this evening too." We then went to our friend John Poole and asked him if he would go to Norborne and see what was going on up there for us. He said he would go and started out at once. On the way he went passed an old Ger- man's house and, hearing some one hollowing, he went in and found the old German locked up in the cellar of the house. He released him and asked him how he got locked up in there. He said that three masked men, the same ones I suppose that Frank and I had seen, had come into his house and robbed him and then locked him up in the cellar. John went on to Norborne and found rout there that the bus, which conveyed passengers over from Richmond to Lexington Junction, had been robbed the day before by three men and Miss Mattie Hamlet, who-was a passenger in the bus at the time had said that she recognized the robbers as the James boys. I state here that I could not say as to the whereabouts of Jesse James at the time of the robbery but as to Frank I could, he being with me at the house of Mr. Poole's at the time of the robbery.. Miss Hamlet must have been mistaken when she said Frank was one of the robbers. Then Frank and I crossed the river and made our way to Salt Springs' where Robert James, Frank's cousin, lived. There we met Jim Hines. Now there was a man by the name of Aulger, who was from the western states, employed by the banks and railroads and who had been appointed deputy sheriff of Marshall, and he was to make the capture of us. He was said to be a very brave and desperate man. Then when this happened we thought we would give Mr. Aulger a chance to show what he could do.

I, therefore, rode into Marshall so as to let them know that I was in the country and that Frank was out at his cousins awaiting my return. There was a fair going on at Marshall when I rode in to town. When I rode out of Marshall Aulger summoned nine men armed with shot guns, and followed me out. I went to Franks cousins and told Frank they were following me and we told Mrs. James, the wife of Frank's cousin, to tell them when they got there that we had just left and to put them on our track. When they left Marshall they were boasting about how they would surround the house and capture us. When they got to the house Mrs. James did as we told her and they came .on after up. We took to the high hills and, would shoot at them at long range with our Winchesters and pistols, while they could not reach us with their shotguns. They would retreat and then we would get, around them and seek another high hill and fire upon them again. This was kept up to within three miles of Marshall. He then went back to Marshall very much disgusted and disheartened and not having done any- thing to boast about as he boasted he would do when he left. He lost one horse and had another wounded and one man wounded. He was another one of those great men who wanted a big reputation and the blood money offered by the banks and railroads but what did he accomplish. I understand he died a poor man and without an office of any kind. Frank, Hines and myself now started to Jackson county where we expected to meet Jesse James and the McDaniel boys.

 Frank and Hines wanted to go by General Shelby's, near Aullville, but I told them that I was a little shaky about going there at that time and I would ride on to Crackerneck, a small settlement in Jackson county and see what was going on up there. We agreed to meet in a couple of days at our old friend Jim Hulse who lived near Crackerneck. On my way to Jackson county I met Cole Younger and John Jarrette at Dr. Twymans. They told me that Jim Younger and Cal Carter were at Tom Lees, and that Bob Younger and Haller was at Mad Tallies. Cole said he would get all the boys and meet us there at three o'clock the following day and we would hold a consultation and decide what we would do. I then went on to Mrs. Burns and there I meet Jesse James. He was in a very desperate mood as he had been run all over Clay county and had had a very hard time in keeping out of their hands. He said, "Jim, lets blow them vigilant committee and Pinker- ton's men up with dynamite." I told him about the meeting we were going to have on the following day at three o'clock. "Well I will go into Kansas City and get the McDaniel boys and have them there to meet with us." I told him that I would go over and see about preparing the grub to eat as there would be too many of us to eat at a private house. The next afternoon at three o'clock they all began to ride into camp and soon all were there. Then we began to make our plans and decide what to do. Jesse was desperate and told us that our neighbor boys in Clay county were out hunting us with shot- guns to shoot us down like dogs and wanted us to go with him to Clay county and blow them up with powder. I told him that I, for one, could not do this. There was a good many suggestions made as to what we would do but as we could not agree on any of them, we scattered, I starting to Texas, in Jim Cummins, the Guerrilla. company with Jim Younger. Jesse also going to Texas, as his wife lived there. On my way to Texas I thought I would stop at my old friend Mrs. Metcalf who lived near Aus- tin Bates county. She kept a hotel on the road to Austin and was a dear friend of mine. She was a great friend also, of Cal Carter and he stopped there very often. He had furnished her husband money enough, although it was counterfeit; to build the hotel, which she now run. Mr. Pinkerton hired a brother of hers to watch us and trap us when we came to her hotel A short time before he had followed me and ran me out of Colorado and when we arrived at the hotel he had just come there about a week before, settling himself down to watch for me and Carter just as an Indian would watch for a deer.

Expecting something of this kind I told Younger that we would tie our horses out of sight of the house and I would steal up to the old lady's window and see how things were around there at that time. We did so and the old lady told me that her brother had been there for over a week watching for us to give us away. I ask her if her barn was insured for enough to pay her the whole value of it if it was burned. She said no it was not, that it lacked about a hundred dollars. I then went-back to where I had left Younger and told him how things were. We made up the hundred dollars between us to give Mrs. Metcalf and planned to burn the barn and when her brother came out of the house to see it burn or to try to put out the flames, we would shoot him down. I went back to the house to give Mrs. Met- calf the money and she said to me, "Jim, do you intend to burn my barn and then when my brother comes out of the. house shoot him down." I told her that that was our intentions. She said, "Jim, if you will not set my barn on fire, I  will get my brother to leave here in the morning and not to hunt for you anymore." I said, "alright under those conditions We will not burn your barn." The next morning she got her brother to leave. She told him what we were going to do and he got scared and left not to hunt for us any- more. Now this is an example of Mr. Pinkerton's great and brave men. After hiring to him to hunt us down he got scared and gave it up. When Mr. Pinkerton was making his speech at the Jamestown Expedition he forgot to mention any case of this kind. I defy him to show where any man be longing to the James and Younger gangs was ever arrested and convicted through his detective agency. He must have forgot himself, when he was making that speech to the chief of police at the Jamestown Expedition, when he said that, through the Pinkerton agency, the James and Younger gangs were broken up. He certainly made a mistake when he gave this to their credit.

THE KILLING OF YOUNG BLYTHE AND THE REVENGE AT THE "BLUE CUT."

Quantrell and his command were in action again and Jackson county was filled with troops. There was a large garrison at Kansas City and smaller ones at Independence, Pink Hill, Lone Jack, Stoney Point and Sibley. Peabody had circulated the report that the majority of Quantrell' men had been wounded and that if a search was made through the brush they might be picked up here and there and disposed of. Therefore raiding bands began to hunt. They would throw old men into prison because they could give no information as to the whereabouts of any of Quantrell's men. Young men were murdered outright and women were insulted and abused. The people therefore were in great fear. When they went to bed at night they went with the fear that the morrow would bring forth a terrible awakening. All travelling was dangerous. The older settlers of Jackson county can yet remember one incident of this hunt. ,An aged man. by the name of Blythe, who believed his own house to be his own, would feed and shelter all who it pleased him to feed and shelter. Cole Younger in particular was a great friend of his. The Colonel commanding the fort at Independence sent a party to find Younger one day and to make the country people tell where he might be found. They went to the home of old man Blythe. He was not at home at the time but his son was. He was a fearless lad of twelve. years. They took him to the barn and ordered him to tell all he knew of Quantrell's men and Younger and their whereabouts. He was to be killed if he failed to tell the truth. The boy was not the least bit frightened and kept them for a time in conversation, all the while looking for an opportunity to escape. Seeing at last what he thought to be a chance he dashed away from his captors and ran to the house, entering amid a perfect shower of bullets. He was not hit however and, seizing a pistol, he dashed out of the back door and ran towards some timber, He reached the garden fence and started to climb over it when a ball struck him in the spine and he fell back dying but game to the last. Turning over on his face as the Jay- hawkers rushed up to finish him, he shot one dead, mortally wounded another and severely wounded a third but before he could fire a fourth shot, seventeen bullets were put into his body. It seemed as if God's vengeance was especially exercised in the righting of this terrible wrong. An old negro man who was at the house of Blythe's at the time, was a witness of the bloody deed, and, afraid his own life would be taken, he ran hurriedly into the timber. He ran upon Younger, Quantrell, Haller, Todd and eleven of their men. They saw that he was greatly excited and thought something had gone wrong. They forced him to tell them the-Whole story. They then started out to ambuscade the murderers, for you can call them nothing else.

There was a pass between two embankments on the road back to Independence, known as "The Blue Cut." It was about fifty yards wide and each embankment was about thirty feet high. Quantrell dismounted his men, and put some at each end of the passage; some on top and on either side. He told them not to fire a shot until the returning Federals had entered in, front and rear. Of the thirty eight Federals sent out after Cole Younger, and who, because they could not find him, had brutally murdered an innocent boy, seventeen were killed, while five, not too badly shot to be able to ride barely managed to escape into Independence, the avenging Guerrillas hard upon their heels. This spot, after this avengeful slaughter, was known as the "Slaughter Pen."

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.

He was as fleet as the wind. He was a Federal soldier in a Dutch company stationed at Lexington and he deserted and joined the bush-whackers: His old company whom he had ran away from, tried to catch him. They caught him in a few days but had hardly done so when another company came along and captured eight of them and he made his escape by making his horse jump a gate which was in his road. He told a friend of his that he was within five miles of him in the first chase and in sight of hell in the last one. During Prices last raid he hid in the garret of Spark's house where the Federals were passing every day. At last when he thought they were through passing he sent for the old negro with whom he had left his horse. He was wounded in the calf of the leg and could not wear his boot so he tied it to the saddle and mounted his horse and started out to hunt for his comrades who were then somewhere near Prairie Church. On the way there he was met by two Federal soldiers. He disarmed them and turned their horse loose and to this day nothing had ever been heard of them. Their horses went to Lexington but it is not known what became of the soldiers.

JIM GETS A PAIR OF SHOES.

 Mr. Pinkerton claimed that he always sent out his shrewdest and bravest men. He might have sent his bravest, but I can not agree with him in regards to the shrewdest men he had, that is if any of his men could be called shrewd. They came out and stayed all night watching my house and then let me go out, go to a railroad and get on a train. They had three men on the train who tried to arrest me . I pulled the bell cord and stopped the train then jumped out of the car window. As I ran off they were shooting at me but I got away safe and sound. I remember that I had just bought me a new pair of boots and they were too small for me and as I ran my already swollen feet suffered a great deal. I had not gone far after jumping out of the car window when I met a boy, who looked to me to be about seventeen years old and I guess I looked to him like a wild man with my coat off and a pistol in one hand and running as hard as I could. He had on a pair of brogan Shoes and I thought I could travel better in them than I could in my boots. So I asked him how he would trade with me but I suppose he was so afraid of me that I could not get a word out of him. I then ordered .him to take his shoes off but he would not do it. So I went up nearer to where he stood and hit him in the neck with my fist and he fell to the ground and I thought I had killed him. I then took off his shoes and put them on and found that they fit me better than my boots did. I left my boots with him to put on when he came to his senses, if he wanted to, and went on my way. I soon came to a small creek and filling my hat with water I thought I had better go back to the boy and see if I could not bring him back to his senses. So I went back to where he lay and poured the water on his face and he soon came too. I then went on my way again. If those Pinkerton detectives had not ran me off the train and shot at me that boy would not have had the knocking down he got and the shoes taken away from him. But you all know that a tight pair of shoes or boots hurt about as bad as anything when a fellow has got to run. I now went on to Missouri and there I visited a friend of mine by. the name of Mrs. Metcalf. Here I met Cal Carter At the supper table Mrs. Metcalf said to me, "Jim, here you are again at my supper table an don't you know that the whole country is after you. Not more than two days ago there were four men here with bloodhounds. They said they were hunting for quails but you are the kind of quails they were hunting for. You told me when you left before that you would let those detectives catch you, you would go into the swamps of Missouri and die of the fever." I said to her, "Mrs. Met- calf, if I was half as big a fool as they take me to be I would not be here talking to you now."

 THE YOUNGERS

When Mr. Pinkerton tried to capture the Younger Boys I suppose he sent his bravest but not shrewdest men. They ran upon the Younger boys and Jim and John disarmed them. While Jim Younger was picking up their arms from the ground, one of the detectives drew a pistol from his pocket and shot John Younger dead on the spot. Then Jim mounted his horse and rode away firing upon the detectives as he rode off, killing two of them and wounding another. That was a sample of Mr. Pinkerton's brave men. Now I would like for you to tell me where the shrewdness. comes in. Where it comes in is more than I can see through. I first joined Fletcher Taylor's company who was then with Bill Anderson. While I was in Taylor's company he said he was going over into Lawrence to see what could be done. Then when Quantrell went over there he said he was going to cross the river with Todd and twenty five of his men and with George Todd in, command capture the capital of Iowa. He told me that there the government had, a good deal of money and that he and Todd intended to take every dollar of it. There were only one hundred and sixty men there guarding it. He said to me that I might boast of going into Leavenworth with Colonel Thornton and bringing out arms but when you go to Iowa you will have something to talk about. You will have enough of greenbacks to make your horse a cover out of thousand dollar bills and then have your saddle bags full of money. We. then crossed the river where we met some Federals and our commander got his arm shot off and then we had no commander. So we did not go to Iowa.

Bill Anderson now came down to Clay County and I joined him. You talk about Quantrell, Todd and Taylor being reckless raiders and fighters, but Anderson I thought was worse than any of them when I joined him. When he fought it was one continuous fight and there was no quitting until he had no men to fight with or until his men ran and left him. He first fought with Captain Colly after I joined him, kill- ing the Captain and whipping his men. They were a hundred men strong. Next he went against the second Colorados who had been stealing and plundering. He soon put a stop to this whipping them very badly and driving them out of the country. He first encountered them in Mrs. Conroll's yard and killed four of them in her yard. Her son, Eran, was in the Confederate Senate at Richmond, Virginia. Then Captain Tiffin, Kemper and Rodgers came against him. He fought them and whipped them and then run them under cover. Here my partner was killed and robbed of eighteen hundred dollars which he had on his person at the time. My sister and his sister came to take his corpse back to his home. They found him buried with his feet sticking out of the ground. There had been hickory whips tied around his feet by which he had been dragged to his grave. These were not United States soldiers who had done this mean act, but were some of the home militia. Sometimes I often thought that Anderson was too cruel to -the people, but I can not blame him much, considering the way his folks had been treated. I remember the morning when Bill Anderson took the train at Centralia. There he took twenty-seven prisoners and killed twenty-six of them. Then he set the train on fire and started the engine and went off,

Then Major Johnson, with three hundred and sixty mounted men, came to Centralia and when he saw what Bill Anderson had done he was very angry. He swore that he would hunt Anderson down and bring his head back on the top of a pole. There was a young lady there who begged him not to go after Anderson. That she had seen his company and she feared that if he went after him he would be the one who got whipped and that they would all be killed. She grabbed his horse by the bridle and begged him not to go but he roughly pushed her away and went. He soon came upon Anderson, halted his men and dismounted them and got them up in line of battle four deep. Then Anderson charged upon him and in a few minutes they all lay dead upon the ground. Major Johnson could not have had better warning than that from the lady who warned him not to go before he left Centralia. I said that they all were killed, but I was mistaken. When he dismounted his men he detailed thirty to hold the horses. These 'men mounted their horses and started to a place about twelve miles. away but there were only about a dozen of them who ever got there, Anderson's men following them and killing most of them before they could get away. Anderson's men followed these men to within about three miles of the place they were going to where there was stationed a company of the government about a thousand men strong. The commander there was getting ready to hoist the white flag, thinking that we were General Shelby coming to attack him. Just think that if he had hoisted the white flag to Anderson he would have killed every one of them. Cruel war.

Take for an example another act of Pinkerton's paid assassins. The first party of men sent down into St. Clair county, Missouri looking for the Youngers, were encountered by Cole Younger who had only his three brothers with him at the time, James, Robert, and John, while there were fifteen of the Pinkertons there. They expect a speedy overthrow and capture but they were fooled in this when Cole and his brothers covered the whole fifteen of them and began to reason how they had came down there to hunt for him and his brother just like wild beasts were hunted and without any cause on with them calmly about the injustice of their course and whatever. He told them that it was his policy to live in peace with his neighbors and abide by the laws and that God knew that he had strife enough. That he had not in all his life harmed or killed any man wantonly and that he had never committed a robbery in his life. He said that no matter what reports were out against him what he said was nothing but the truth. He told them that all he asked was to be placed up- on the same footing as other law abiding people were and to be treated as a human being instead of an outlaw. He then re- leased them without, a search or any injury. These men were citizens of the county and they were satisfied with the treatment they had received and with Coles explanation. But it was not this way with Pinkerton and his paid assassin. It was their especial and self-imposed mission to lay and entrap and this made Cole more and more desirous- of striking a blow that was full of vengeance. He selected for this a detective by the name of Lull, who was said to be very cool, skillful, vigilant and desperate and he had great need to be for the kind of work he was engaged in. He came down into St. Clair county with another detective and recruited at Osceola. The deputy sheriff of the county. a young man named Daniels and the two detectives began to hunt for the Younger Boys just as a trapper would go out to hunt for a pack of wolves. It is not believed that they had any warrant for the arrest of any of the Younger Boys. It was only rumors or sensation al journalism that had connected them in any manner with the bank and railroad robberies. The people, among whom they lived, believed them to be innocent and had borne testimony to it several times in such a manner as to carry with their defence the convincing evidence of its truth. Nevertheless according to Pinkerton and his paid assassins they were to be shot down as if they were so many horses with the glanders or so many dogs with the hydrophobia. Lull began his fight with bravado and ended it with a bullet.

They found John and Jim Younger or rather John and Jim found them. As Cole had done with the first party of hunters so did John and Jim so with these the second party. They covered Lull's party with their shot guns and called out to them to surrender. The desperate Lull, picked as he was and chosen above a host of men, did surrender to all intents and purposes. He threw his own revolver to the ground and told Daniels and the other detectives to do the same, which they did. Then John Younger, after having disarmed them, lowered his gun and for the first time in all his life permitted himself to be taken unawares - Lull drew a small pistol, which up to this time had been concealed upon him, and shot the unsuspecting man through the neck, cutting the jugular vein, yet not knocking him from his horse. With the hand of death clutching savagely at his throat and with the blood spurting out in great jets at every heart beat, John Younger yet steadied himself with a superhuman effort and mortally wounded Lull, killed Daniels and dashed at the third detective, who turned about, born coward that he was, and fled as fast as he could make his horse go into Osceola. When James Younger reached his brother John the tragedy was over and the dauntless boy was dead. There was not a more infamous murder ever committed in the State of Missouri than this killing of John Younger. He had never been accused of doing criminal things only by these murderous detectives and his name had never been connected with any of the bank or train robberies He was a peaceful man, living in the midst of a peaceful community. He was respected by his neighbors, trusted by men of business and was honest, energetic and enterprising. He was hunted to his death just be- cause all the guns in the world and all the enemies in the world could neither scare him or drive him away from his own. He was just in the early manhood of life. His grave today, lonely and premature in his native state, cries out for vengeance. The head of a civilization which permits irresponsible, accused system of legalized assassination to,, prey, upon innocent people equally with the guilty and defy and rise above the laws while professing to obey its mandates and keep clearly within the limits of its just provisions.

WITH THE JAMES BOYS

 In the fall of 1880, I started to Tennessee in company with Dick Little, Bill Ryan and Jesse James. Dick and I traveled together and Jesse and Bill together. At night we always tried to make it convenient to stop together and very often stopped with some good families. We stopped one day for our dinners at the house of a good family and the gentleman of the house was not there but the lady of the house and her two daughters and a school marm were there. We got our dinners and were treated very nice. After dinner Ryan became much smitten with one of the girls and he said he would pay the bill for our dinners. Of course we did not object to this. Our bill was two dollars but Ryan did not have anything but a five dollar bill and they could not make the change only in this manner, we either had to pay them three dollars or they had to lose twenty five cents and make our bill one dollar and seventy five cents. But the school marm thought they were not charging us enough so she said, "Charge them three dollars. They are not paying enough anyway." Jesse called me to one side and said, "Three dollars is too much for what we got here." I told him, "You are right, you go over to where her husband is and bring him here and we will settle with him. We will arrest them for running this hotel without license." When they heard me say this, they began to change their minds about what they were going to charge us, the old school marm included with the rest of 'them. But I was positive to have the old man brought over and when we got him at the house we told that we were looking for moonshiners. Then he said, "Well, stay all night with me and tomorrow I think I can put you on the track of some." Of course we agreed to do this. As night was approaching we told him who we really were. Then, Oh, how nice he was. Ryan had got so smitten of one of the girls that he wanted to marry her. He told the old man about it and he was very willing that she should marry him. He said, "Yes you can have the girl for my part, Bill, and Jesse you can have the old school marm and Dick can have my other girl and Jim I will even give you the old lady.' We did not want any moonshiners but the old man the next day sent over and got some moonshine whiskey for us to drink. We stayed with him until about four o'clock the next evening and, on leaving gave him twelve dollars for his trouble. He did not want to take it but we made him. Bill did not take the girl, he had fallen in love with, with him, although he wanted to do so but we would not let him. The girl had agreed to go and wanted to go as bad as Bill wanted to take her along with him.

 THE DEATH OF ARCH CLEMENTS.

Arch Clements was killed in the summer of 1869. He went to Lexington Mo., with about thirty others to enroll- Lexington, at this time, was garrisoned by Fletcher's Militia. That evening as they left town, Major Farley' followed them out of town and persuaded Arch to come back with him. He rode back into town and dismounted and went into the bar of the city hotel. He was followed by a crowd of the Militia, who began firing upon him as soon as he was inside the door. He ran to his horse, mounted and rode up Franklin Street. As he passed the court house square another squad fired at him and he was mortally wounded. He rode four blocks beyond there before he fell from his horse with his revolvers in his hand. He died gamely trying to shoot some of the militia. He fought from the start and would have certainly killed some of them but he had been drinking at the time and for this reason his aim was not true. After Bill Anderson was killed Arch Clements was made captain of the company. He was then at the age of nineteen. He was a holy terror with pistols, having killed seven men at the battles of Centralia. After he was killed at Lexington, Mo., he was buried at Dover, Mo., near the Immortal Jno. N. Edwards.

"I was walking along the streets in Higginsville, Mo., one day when a friend said to me, "Yonder goes Jim Cummins." Having heard that Jesse James had killed' him, I went across the street to where he was and stopped him and began to talk to him. I told him that he was not the original Jim Cummins and that I would bet him twenty five dollars that he was not and I would surely have done so, but Nathan Cooper, President of the Bank of Higginsvile, who was with me at the time, gave me a hint not to bet him. I have found out since then that he is the one and only Jim Cummins."

(Signed) R. C. YOUNG, M. D. Eureka Springs, Ark., July 25th, 1897.

Mr. Jim Cummins: I thought I would write you a few lines. My name is Mary Cogwell now. I have been married 20 months. I live 7 miles from Eureka Springs, got a little farm and I want you if ever you come to this country to come and visit us. We've got a baby two months old. We call him Jim Cummins Cogwell. My father, mother and my husband all send regards to you. They often talk about you. They say you are a friend to the poor and especially to young girls coming in their teens. When Bud Jaskan New was arrested and convicted for that awful crime you helped my father get an able attorney. You gave him money and you know I was just poor little Mary Galer then trying to sell some butter in town when I swore out that awful charge against Bud Jaskan New for which he was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison and I can hear all the good women talking about you. You know you hired an able attorney to prosecute him and you gave my poor father $25 and you spent $50 hiring a man to give Bud Jaskan away and the good women made up $100.00 and gave 'you' and you spent it in arresting him and convicting him and we never can forget it. My father and mother and my husband and lots of good women says the latch string hangs on the outside for you and as for me and if there was a $5000 reward for you I don't think I would give you  away but you know that's lots of money and especially to an Arkansas farmer. Now Mr. Cummins if you ever come to Eureka I want you to come out and see us at our little home and I want you to write me a letter and I think you ought to write to my poor mamma too. I will have to close this letter.

MRS. MARY COGWELL.

I was in Dover, Mo., some time ago and knowing that Major John N. Edwards and Arch Clemmens were buried there, I thought I would like to visit their graves. Major Edwards grave had a monument on it but there were no marks on it and not knowing the exact spot I could not find his grave. Neither could I find that of Arch Clemmens. This causes me to think of the time when I visited the grave of Bill Anderson in Richmond, Ray County, Mo. When Bill Anderson was killed at Albany, the Federal militia put throws on his head and had his photograph taken. Then they buried him in a grave not two feet deep without, a coffin or shroud. not After the militia had gone, the southern ladies came to his grave with flowers and decorated it. Then Colonel King came along with the Thirteenth Missouri Regiment which was made up of these militia and home guards and had a name of burning and killing. He had the flowers that the Southern ladies had placed on the grave burned and he cursed the ladies who put them there. When I saw Anderson's grave it caused me to think how those Kansas men had gone to his home on Elm Creek in Kansas and murdered his father, ran him and his brother from home and left his mother and sisters there to be insulted and abused by those Red Legs. and cutthroats. Afterward the two sisters were taken to Kansas City, Mo., and put in prison. The house in which they were imprisoned had been undermined so badly that it fell and crippled one of the sisters and 'killed the other. This made me think of the time when Quantrell lined up his men to start to Lawrence, Kans. He made all the young boys get out of line. Then what did Bill Anderson say. "Give me Lawrence or give me hell." But there is no use for me to try to explain the cause of Quantrell going to Lawrence because history has already done that. For my part, I was not at Lawrence. I was only a beardless boy just in my teens at that time. When these Kansas men came over to where I lived and insulted my mother and sisters and killed my uncle, who never took a part either way, the men, who were our neighbors, were afraid to bury him. So my mother and some other women had to bury him. Then the men who had done the killing gave my mother fifteen days to get ready to leave the state. The reason of this was because she would feed her boys when they came home to visit her and her friends. They call them bush-whackers. My mother sent my youngest brother to a friend in Kansas to keep these Red Legs from killing him. Then she was getting ready to send me to California for the same reason but history shows that I did not go, although I was only a beardless boy at that time.

Today I can imagine I can hear the cries of old man Ferrill, seventy years old, who was taken out of his bed by these man and a rope put around his neck and tied up in the top of a thorn tree and left to die that way. Then the killing of Mr. John Harris. He was a southern  man and had come home on parole when these men came to his house to kill him. They entered his house at night and silently went to his bed where he lay asleep. Then they killed him as he lay there by the side of his dear wife. I can imagine now that I can hear those cries and groans of the men who were killed by these Red Legs. I had no use for General Sherman. I often think of his march to the sea, burning the southern homes and taking all the southern people had to eat. He took all of the negroes and fed them and left the poor white women and children to starve. I think this was a great sin.

When Anderson was killed and Arch Clemmens was put in command of the company he took a solemn oath that he would not take a Federal soldier that wore a Federal uniform. When the Federals. were surrounded at Boonville, Mo., General Price would not let, him kill some soldiers that he had captured, He then crossed the river with his company and said that he would fight the Red Legs, to the death and Would fight them with fire. Lexington, Mo. 1863. Andy Blunt, one of Quantrell's men accompanied by James Waller and Charles Burns went to Lexington in 1863 to release Otto Hinton, who was held a prisoner there, and had been put in chains, and condemned to be shot by the fired upon by the Federal guards and Charles Burns was killed on the spot. Blunt returned the fire the best he could killed on the spot. Blunt returned the fire the best he could and succeeded in killing one of the guards and wounding another. He then was forced to flee to save his life. He ran through back yards and by ways until he finally came to a road. Here he was met by the Federal Calvary who began firing upon him. He fired at them a few times and succeeded in killing one of their men. He then ran towards the river and finally made his escape. When Blunt first came up and was fired upon by the guards, the guard, who was over Hinton, blowed the poor mans brains out.

In the year 1878 the bank at Concordia was robbed. A man by the name of Alford was arrested for the robbery by Mr. Pinkerton and his men. As Alford was a member of Quantrell's Guerillas or had been. Mr. Pinkerton and his men thought they had done some great thing when they arrested him and you just ought to have heard them boast about it. They took him to Lexington to try him. The President and two other officers of the bank and several other Germans who lived in Concordia swore that they recognized Mr. Alford as beings one of the men who had robbed the bank. Mr. Alford proved by over a dozen of the best people of Johnson County that he was in that County the very hour and day the bank was robbed Therefore he was tried and cleared by a jury at Lexington, Lafayette County, Mo. At the time when Pinkerton and his men arrested him, he was staying with a friend of his in Johnson County, Mo., by the name of Houcks, who had been at one time a member of Quantrell's band. After the trial of Alford and the clearing of him the Ger- mans who were at Lexington left there in a hurry and I think Mr. Pinkerton and his men made themselves rather scarce around there also. They had boasted a great deal about having caught one of the James and Younger gang but could not have convicted him for that robbery if they had had twenty five or more Germans to swear that he was one of the robbers. He was in Johnson County at the time and every good citizen there was willing to swear to his innocence. You could not convict him, Mr. Pinkerton, with all your money the banks and express Companies and railroad companies furnished you, and. I don't know how much money the government furnished you. You know, I don't.

CUMMINS HAS A NARROW ESCAPE.

About as narrow escape as I ever had was after the raid on Kingston in Caldwell County. We went into camp in the woods, and after putting out guards, we were soon sound asleep, wrapped in our blankets. There was some one who had seen us go into camp and he had informed the militia of it. They slipped around the guards and surrounded us and began firing upon us as we lay there on the ground wrapped up in our blankets. I jumped up while the were shooting and, as it was every man .for him- self, I jumped on my horse barebacked and let her run, with out guiding, through the woods, still hearing the firing after I was fully a mile away, and thus made my escape.

A RAID TOWARD CAMERON IN 63.

I was with Colonel Thornton while he was .recruiting. Lieu't Fletch Taylor, of Todd's company, with fifteen of Quantrell's men was also recruiting. Colonel Catherwood, of the Thirteenth Missouri Federal Regiment was also recruiting in Caldwell and Buchanan counties. A man by the name of Davis, informed Lieut. Taylor that there was a man -near Cameron who was recruiting for Catherwood. Davis told Taylor that if he would give him a squad of men he would capture and kill this man and bring in some good horses. Taylor did not have much faith in Davis so he persuaded some not to go with him. But some of my neighbors and myself included were to go with him. Davis proved himself to be a brave man. We started on Sunday evening. We reached Barnesville, Clinton Co., and stopped for supper near Captain Rodgers, a Federal officer, who was making it quite uncomfortable for the southern people. As we ordered our supper, we were asked our mission. We told them we were militia men carrying dispatches from, Liberty to Cameron. Davis showing them the dispatches which he had written himself. He then told Davis that if that was his mission he would eat his grub and feed his horses also. He said, "Do you know 01 Shepherd is playing the devil in this county." Davis said, "No, if that is the case we had 'better feed our horses in the yard," which we did. He told us that Rodgers was making plans to capture Ol Shepherd that night.

We hurried up with our suppers so as to get away, as some of Rodger's men had begun to pass. We kept hid, so as not to be recognized. We finished our suppers and offered to pay but he refused to accept any pay from men on such an errand as we told him we were on. We reached the home of a friend of Davis near Cameron. His friend gave us all the movements of Catherwood in that neighborhood. There was a widow near by whose son had joined Catherwood's regiment. 'She lives in a log cabin, which had no windows but had a door on both sides. We went up and found that the old lady and her son were in bed. Davis and King went to the rear door while Rupe and myself to the front door. Davis knocked and the old lady asked, "Who is there " 'We replied, "Some of Quantrell's men." We heard them and began to get ready for action. The front door opened to the outside instead of the inside. This door was pushed open and I was knocked down by it and considerably bruised. Her son ran out. Rupe followed, shooting at him, killing one of our horses. I went to the house to wrap my wounds. The old lady was giving us "Hail Columbia," and bragging how smart her son was in getting away. I told her that she had better not be so fast that I thought I smelled blood in the other direction! The father of the recruiting officer lived in a large frame house on a hill. None of the people had gone to bed when we got there so we entered. We found the man with a lieutenant colonel's uniform on. When told that we were Quantrell's men, they were very much excited. We heard talking in an adjoining room. Davis Rupe and myself went to investigate, leaving King to guard the young officer. There were young people in the next room, but before we could get .back to the other room where King and the young officer was we heard shooting. The young man had knocked down and ran up stairs. We ordered him down and he said that if we wanted him to come up after him. The old man and the girls begged us not to go,, that he was well armed and would shoot every one of us. Rupe and Davis wanted to go, but King and I told them that we would bring him down. His mother and the girls began to boast. I took a straw tick from the bed and threw it on the stairway. I then told her that I would set it on fire and shoot him by the light of the burning house as he ran away. Then they began to beg us not to burn the house and kill the poor boy. We asked her what else we could do as he would murder us all. To get us to leave they agreed to give us two revolvers, one of the ladies giving me one which was her own, and a horse although we took to. We then took the old man and girls as an escort to keep the son from shooting us as we left. After we were mounted. I told Davis that we had better not tell the people that we belong to Quantrell's command but to Garth's militia. We had fooled one old fellow and could fool others as well. After leaving Quantrell's name out we were more successful in capturing horses and arms. We now went back to our old camp in Clay county. .

 WITH JESSE JAMES.

Jesse James and I, with three other boys, were sworn into the service together at the home of Mrs. Robert Ferrills. During the first summer of the war Roupe and Smith were killed and King died. Jesse and I stayed together until the end and for some years after. I helped to carry him out of Mr. Highsinger's house on the Wakenda, in Carroll county, when he was shot through the body by Highsinger. We took him to the banks of the Missouri River where we left him with a good Irishman and his wife. The good old Irishman and his wife soon nursed him back to life. He then rejoined our company just before we started to Centralia. He and I, with Arch Clemmens, were in advance of Anderson's command when we went into Fayette, where we lost thirty men in thirty minutes, out of Todd's and Anderson's old company. Then we left there and started to Centralia. History has already told what Anderson did there. Before we surrendered at Lexington Mo., we were run onto by the Federal force which was stationed at Lexington. Jesse James was shot and ran over and left in a briar patch for dead. But a good farmer found him and carried him up to Mr. Bradley's home on Tabo creek, where he was nursed back to life by Mrs. Bradley. Then the good Mrs. Bradley's helped to put him in a wagon and he was taken to Lexington by Judge Young, a Union man, to surrender. Then he was sent to his mother in Nebraska more dead than alive. The next day Judge Young took me into Lexington to surrender. A short time ago I showed Mr. Cooper, of Sweet Springs, and the President of the Bank of Higginsville, the place where Jesse James was hid on the Tabo and where his wife and her sisters carried food to him to keep him from starving. After Jesse and I surrendered, it was some time before we met again. But we always were friends and had always traveled together, and as comrades. No man ever got the best of us, because if we were suspicious of something, one would stay awake and watch while the other slept. I watched over him while he slept when there was a ten thousand dollar reward for him without conviction, and he has done the same for me.

I can't help but think of the San Antonio stage robber, James Reed. He as one of Quantrell' men and he was a bad one too. He 'fell in love with a lovely and innocent girl, made love to her and they were married. She soon learned that he was a stage and train robber and by his wicked influences she soon became as bad as he was and finally betrayed him and had him killed. He left a lovely daughter and Reed's mother took her to raise, trying to make a good woman out of her. Bruce Younger fell in love with her and decoyed her away before she was sixteen years old. She learned from him what her mother had learned from her 'father. The last time I met her she was only thirteen years old but since, I have heard that she has been implicated in more horse stealing and robbery than any woman in the West. And I believe now that she has helped to rob more innocent men than any women of her class. She has been accused of being implicated in more horse stealing and robbing than any women I ever heard of. She was well known in the west as Belle Star. But for all of this I must say that her fathers mother was a good old christian woman. In this case it was not as in the case of Adam and Eve, but it was the man who tempted the women. After I had been with Jesse James for twenty five years. When he began to turn against his best friends and killed some of them, when I heard he had killed Ed Miller I sent him word I never wanted to see him alive again. Then he came with some of his friends to kill me. I did not know it at the time or he would have found me to his sorrow. As Mr. Timberlake offered me a pardon and ten thousand dollars through Governor Crittenden I could have gone to Kentucky and got Wood Hite and Clarence for five thousand each and could have gone to Charley Fords and got Dick Little and got $5,000 more for the Winston robbery, got three or four men with double barrell shot guns and got in Charley Fords log barn when Frank and Jesse rode up and ordered them to surrender. And if they had not, you kind reader, can judge the results.' I told Mr. Timberlake to take his ten thousand and go to h-l. with it. I went to Gorman, Kansas and went to work for Pierce and Jones at $1.50 per day.

This takes in all the times they were fixing for the Missouri robbery. When I read of the trial of Frank at Gallatin and how his friends tried to substitute me for him in that Missouri robbery it caused me to think I ought to have taken Mr .Timberlake's proposition. No man can put the traitor brand on me and make it stick. I spoke of some good women in my other book. I don't think this book would be complete without mentioning the good women of Missouri and when I see this beautiful Confederate Home they begged the money for, there is none to compare with them, either north or south. Politicians will tell us what they have done for us, but it is only to get our votes. I believe there is a God and a just one and some day they will get their reward.

TWO YEARS AS A SCOUT.

 After the Glendale train robbery and they had offered a five thousand dollar reward for me, without conviction, I decided that I would go west. I was employed as an Indian scout by General Schafter, Capt. Bullis was over the guards and scouts and was appointed agent of the Appache Indians. I worked for him two years, during which time, I got acquainted with all the men of the tenth cavalry (colored.) They used to shoot craps and play Mexican Monte. I run plug horses and would gamble with them. I then concluded to visit Alberquerque, N. M., taking with me Tom Anderson, a discharged negro soldier, who had been a very successful crap shooter. We crossed the river in a skiff, leaving our horses on the opposite side. The first night after starting we were very successful at a crap game, taking in one hundred and eighty dollar, and two hundred dollars dealing Mexican Monte. The other gamblers were very jealous of us, so we left that night, crossing back across the river to where our horses were. The next morning I decided to recross the river to get some clothing. It was very early when I went across for the second time and I landed on the other side, from where our horses were with the negro, at the railroad shops, and was arrested by an officer as soon as I set foot on the land. He asked me where I had come from. I told him that I had just come across the river. He would not believe that I told him the truth and I could not convince him that I had just came across. He said, "I will run you in anyway." He took my revolver away from me, a Colts forty five, but he overlooked a Smith and Wesson which I had in my pocket. This was  a good thing for me, because, when he opened the door of the jail and started to lead me in to lock me up, I got the from him. I then made him cross the river with me and travel with us till three o'clock the next afternoon, after which drop on him and took both my own and his revolver away we turned him and his horse loose in the sage brush to get back as best he could. Then, feeling that the country was getting a little too warm for us, we decided to leave that part of the country and go to Old Mexico to visit the Mormon Settlement.

JIM'S. HEART FAILED HIM.

After the war, knowing where was living a man, who had helped to kill my uncle, I decided that I would kill him. So I went to his home, pretending that I wanted to buy some calves from him. I arrived at his house about noon and was invited to dinner. After dinner we went down to see the calves and then it was that I intended to shoot him. After we got down to the pasture I found that I had left my horse at the house and I would have to go back to the house to get him after I had shot the man and then I would see his poor wife and children by so going and my heart failed me so I did not kill him.

 "WOODSON" DID THE TALKING.

In 1876 Jesse and Frank James and myself were on our way to Kentucky with some fine race horses.. At night we stopped with the best people that we could find. We crossed the river at Cape Girardeau. We went to the home of Senator Sate and stayed over night with him. He was a rich farmer and they were very aristocratic people. We thought it best to change our names, so Frank went by the name of Ben Woodson, Jesse by the name of David Nelson and I went by the name of James Johnson. When Jesse and I saw that these were well to do people, we decided to let "Mr. Woodson" do the talking, as he was much more capable of doing it than either of us. The senator had several daughters and in the evening there were several young gentlemen came to call on them. They were in the parlor and we were in the room next to the parlor and the door was open a little ways between 'the two rooms. Therefore when we talked they could hear what we said as we could theirs Naturally Mr. Sate asked what our business was. Mr. Woodson told him anything so as to keep clear of the law. Then they began to talk of Texas, on which Mr. Woodson was well posted. They were doing some pretty fast talking when I noticed one of the young men in the parlor making a good deal of boasting about going to West Point and was criticising Mr. Woodsons' talk a good. deal also. I wrote a short note, telling him to just step outside and I would give him a few lessons so he would not need to go to West Point. I handed the note to Jesse and he in turn handed it to a darky, who was passing through the room, to give to the young man in the other room. When the young man read my note he left the room and when supper was announced he could not be found. After supper we were invited into the parlor and spent a very pleasant evening. After that when we stopped with well to do people we would say: "We will let Mr. Woodson do the talking."

OUR LAST TRIP SOUTH.

After Price made his last raid through Missouri in the fall of 64. Arch Clements, who took command of Bill Anderson's company after he was killed, took the company south. George Shepherd and Bill Gregg gathered a few of Bill Anderson's and Quantrell's men, myself, Jesse James and Theo Castle being among the number, Quantrell having picked twenty five men and gone into Kentucky. We followed Price in Missouri and as the soldiers had laid waste the country and for this reason we were very scarce of food. Dick Maddox, Capt. Gregg and Jim Hendericks were accompanied on the trip by their. wives. We went into camp and next morning we met the U. S. Mail with fifteen guards and several pack mules with provisions for men and horses. We captured them killing all but one man. We met the Federal regiment and were forced to leave the main road and take to the woods where we met and fought with the Pin Indians during the fight.' Capt. Gregg wished the ladies to remain in the background, but one of the ladies who had lost her horse and was riding a fine one given her by Jesse and myself that we had captured, insisted on joining in the fight. Jesse James, Theo Castle and myself joined Anderson's old company in Sherman, Texas. Capt. Gregg and George Shepherd took the remainder of the company and went to Waco, Texas, where they wintered.

 JIM MEETS MR. BRYAN.

 In the year of 1903 Mr. William Jennings Bryan was a visitor of the Confederate Home of Missouri at Higginsville, He shook hands with all the old soldiers. He then asked the superintendent if there were any men there at the Home who were Quantrell's men. He was told that there were two there, John Fisher and myself. He then said that he would like to see and have a talk with us. I was out plowing in the garden when they sent for me and told me that Mr. Bryan wished to see me. I could hardly believe that Mr. Bryan wanted to see me. When Mr. Fisher and I were introduced to him I thought I would let Mr. Fisher' do the talking. He was a much older man than I was, being then eighty three years old and had hair that was white as snow, and I thought it was proper to let him do the talking. His mind, then as old as he was, was as good as it was in his younger day. I thought that about three minutes was long enough for me to be in Mr. Bryan's presence, and had began to get ready to leave but I noticed that Mr. Bryan seemed to want me to say something but I was so struck that I did not know what to say. I finally managed to say, "You are a great man, and maybe some day you'll be President and then I hope you will not forget the poor old rebel soldiers." He then replied that he certainly would not forget them. After being in his presence for some time longer we went out and I went back to my work plowing in the garden thinking as I worked what a great man he was. I have seen a good many great men among which are President Grant, George B. McClelland and Roscoe Conklin, Senator from the great state of New York, I have heard the latter speak and then I believed him to be the smartest man in the world. But when Mr. Bryan had me called in from the garden and I talked with him I very soon changed my mind about who was the greatest man. He won me over in a minute. And I think now that Mr. Bryan is one of the greatest and grandest men that ever lived and I do hope to see him some day President of this great country.

BLACK FLAG RAISED AT LAWRENCE, KAN.

The black flag was first raised at Lawrence, Kansas, by Jennison and Lane. It was Bill Anderson who first proposed to Quantrell to go to Lawrence. It was a cold day for Jennison's and Lane's men when Old Spiebuck, the old Indian found Quantrell badly wounded by the side of his dead brother on the banks of the Little Cotton Wood and took him home, after burying his dead brother, and nursed him back to life. It was a bad day for Jennison's and Lane's men when Anderson met Quantrell and told him of his troubles. He told Quantrell of the killing of his father and one sister and the crippling of the other sister. Then Anderson was the first man to propose to Quantrell to go to Lawrence. Anderson told Quantrell that he would take Lawrence or go to hell trying. Some say they went there without a cause but I say they had cause enough. I say it was an awful thing. Many men were killed and wounded, but I say they were in bad company or they would not have lost their lives. I further want to say, that I was not there, and they can never accuse me of killing an unarmed man or a prisoner.

CUMMINS AS A DETECTIVE.

 In the year 1897 I returned to Eureka Springs. There were no indictments standing against me so I began to look around for something to do. I had been a scout with Gen'l Shafter. I was along when Chief Geronimo was captured. I was a scout on the Apache reservation for two years under Lieutenant Johnson, Sub agent at Camp Apache. I helped to run down the Mormons that robbed the Government Pay- master, Swam, close to Fort Thomas, Arizona and I took the Indian trailers from Camp Apache and helped the Sheriff of Flagstaff, Arizona run down and arrest the thief, Neal who had a band of Mexicans and cowboys who were robbing stations and stealing horses. But when I got back to Eureka I want- ed something that was exciting and I thought I would turn detectives' and I caught two men for robbing the Beaver Post- office and after they were convicted and sent to prison George Lawson and others tried to beat me out of the three hundred dollar reward, but after I came here to the home I wrote Senator Cockrell and soon received a voucher for the money. Then I got a job from Major True the revenue collector hunting moonshiners but some of my rebel friends were connected with the moonshiners and I had to go into the chicken business and a man from Chicago was buying a car load of chickens and I got a hold of a rooster that whipped all the rest of the roosters he had. I then concluded I would send this chicken to Mr. William Pinkerton as he was such a fighter and a man took the chicken and put Mr. Pinkerton's name on a card and tied it to the chicken and had the chicken left in Mr. Pinkerton's yard in Chicago. He telephoned Mr. Pinker- ton that I had sent him the chicken. I wrote to Mr. Pinkerton  and told him he had been running me and some of my associates for twenty five years. You have claimed you have had some of your bravest and smartest men after us and you have the banks and express and railroad companies to draw money from and I guess secret service money too, and now here I am a poor man with just enough money to buy a wagon load of chickens at a time and now I have the fightingest chicken that was ever in Arkansas. I just thought I would send him to you and make you a present of him so that you. can boast that you could have something that would and can fight.

 HE VISITED BILL ANDERSON'S GRAVE.

On the 26th day of February 1908 I visited the grave of Bill Anderson at Richmond, Mo. While I was fixing up the grave to put some flowers on it, an old colored lady came along. She asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was fixing up Anderson's grave. She said she stood by and seen him buried. She told me that right east of his grave was the place where two Federal soldiers were buried. She said when Bill Anderson was buried she and several other southern women helped to put some flowers on his grave. A short time after this, when the flowers had dried up, Colonel King, of the 13th Missouri Regiment, came along with his men and set fire and burned them, all the while cursing the women who had placed them there. Prof. Dunn. came along then and as he was a friend of Anderson he placed stones on his grave and caused me to think when I arrived in Sherman, Texas with three or four of Anderson's men in advance of the company and went to Mrs. Smith's house, the mother of Bill Anderson's wife, and when Mr. John Moppin, who had been wounded in the fight in which Anderson was killed and we had taken through to Sherman, told Mrs. Smith and Bill's wife of the death of Bill Anderson, the wife cried all night and almost went into hysterics. After the long and tiresome traveling which we had just done we were very dirty and tired and some of the men were even lousy and so we told Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Smith that we would go because we were not fit to sleep in her house. But they would not let us leave and soon had beds made down on the parlor floor for us and made us sleep there in the house, as dirty as we were. They were even then afraid we would get up and leave so they locked all the doors and hid the keys. Then Mrs. Anderson watched over us all night, all the while mourning over the death of her husband, Bill Anderson. After being there a few days, Arch Clemmens and Jim Anderson came in with the company of Bill Anderson's and then there was more wailing over Bill's death. They then took an oath to Mrs. Smith and Bill Anderson's wife that they would avenge his death. History has proven that they kept their oath well.

Bill Anderson was not the first man to raise the black flag. It was first raised at Lawrence, Kan., by Jennison and Lane. A few days later Bill's sister and Mr. Long's daughters came in. Bill's sister had a crippled limb which she had received at Kansas City when the house in which they were was undermined and had fallen in upon them, killing one sister and crippling Lizzie, the other one. A one armed Confederate soldier came through with them and to keep from starving the women had to steal food and would tie the end of his coat sleeve up and put the food in it to keep it out of sight. While the old colored women was talking to me about the Federal soldiers being buried so close to Anderson's grave it caused me to think of what he said when he started to Lawrence which was "Give me Lawrence or give-me hell." Then after I thought about Bill and the Federal soldiers being buried so close together, it made me think, should they all meet in hell, which side the devil would side with, whether it would be with Anderson or the Federal soldiers. But it makes no difference, he would give them all hell, anyway.

GAVE HIMSELF UP IN 1901.

In the year 1901, when I went back to Clay county. I went and gave myself up to the sheriff of Clay county. His name was King. I told him that if they had any charges against me to go ahead and bring them up and then I sent for my attorney Mr. Simrall, of Liberty, Mo. He came and sent for Mr. Trimble the prosecuting attorney of the county. He then said, "If you have got any charges against Jim you just bring them up." They said that they had none and did not wish to make any. Mr. King said, "I am glad to see you back and I look upon you now as a free man." Mr. Trimble said, "Jim, what do you expect to do now." "I expect to make just a short stay here in this county to visit my friends," I answered. Most of the people here in this county, when they would meet me would say they are glad to see me back. These were the ones who were hounding me with guns in their hands. They reminded me of people mired down in the mud and say they were sorry, but pass on by. Now Mr. Reed said to me that he was glad to meet me and what did he do. He spent thousands of dollars hunting and trying to capture me and others. He said he would have come after me when I was at Buffalo, Wyoming but they would not put up his expenses. Sheriff Canton, of Buffalo whom I gave myself up to, told me that Mr. Reed was ready to come after me just as soon as he could get the papers from Gov. Crittenden. Gov. Crittenden would not give him the papers to come after me and then of course no one would put up the expenses he would incur coming after me. I told Mr. Reed that they would have just as hard a time taking me out of Wyoming without the proper authority as he would have doing it here. I also told him that he had searched my mother's house with ten or fifteen men, while she was sick in bed and not expected to live and running the county into expenses hunting for me and others; That he had searched Charley and Bob Ford's house with ten men looking for me and others at the expense of the county. That he had left Dick Little in Charley Ford's house, he being hid by Mattie Bolten, there being five thousand dollars reward offered for him. This made him feel disgusted when he found it out, that he had went off and left Dick in the house after searching it with his men and thus loseing the reward offered for his capture. It was not so much the arrest, but it was the five thousand-dollar reward that made him so disgusted with himself. Mr. Jones Dale will testify that it was a fact that he did leave Dick Little there in the house, after searching it with his ten men. Just think how much of the secret service, railroad and express companies and the counties money, Crittenden, Craig and Timberlake have spent, uselessly, hunting for me and others,-trying to capture and arrest us. God only knows, I don't, I say it was money, blood money that you wanted and not so, much as to the ridding the counties of lawbreakers.

Then when I had spent every cent I had in the world trying to get out of trouble, and did not know which way to turn my head to make a living they would come up to me and say, "Jim I am glad to see you back." Then they would ask me why I did not write a book. Some of them would tell me I could write a book and make lots of money. Some of them would be friends, said they would help me and I could make lots of money out of it. Some of them told me about Mr. Tillottson, Supt., of the Pinkertons and I went to him and had an interview with him about it. We made a contract that he was to publish the book and give me half.: I never believed he had any intentions of publishing the book. I was to get up the manuscript at his expense and he was to publish the book and give e half. I got the manuscript up and he paid all the bills except one. That was for photographs taken by Mr. Riley, at Richmond, which Mr. Riley tells me he has not paid to this day and just think I have letters where he says his word is as good 'as' a bank. I thought from the start that he never in- tended to print that book. Men came to me to rob the train and told me it was a job of Tillotson of the Pinkertons to try to trap me. I told Mr. Tillotson about it and I thought he was at the head of it so as to catch me on something. I told him that if he would give me twenty five hundred dollars I would go with them to rob the train 'and then he could have his men on the train and he could catch them all. He would not do this and for this reason I knew it was all a plot to catch me. When he saw he could not catch me he got mad and told he me could not print the book for me. He was hot and then went to Chicago, then he turned the manuscript all over to me. I asked him what I should do with it. That I I could put it in the fire and burn it all. I did not do this however. He thought I was easy. I kept it for some time and every one asked me what I was going to do with it. I could not tell them anything.