“Will you still be my sweetheart then, and be my friend?” I asked her, and she declared she would, a promise I was to remind her of years later under circumstances of which I did not dream then.
Many years afterward with a party of visitors to the prison came a girl, perhaps sixteen, who registered in full “Horace Greeley Perry.”
I knew there could not be two women with such a name in the world, and I reminded her of her promise, a promise which she did not remember, although she had been told how she had made friends with the bold bad man who afterwards robbed the bank at Northfield.
Very soon afterward, at the age of eighteen, I believe, she became, as she had dreamed in childhood, a “newspaper man,” editing the St. Peter Journal, and to the hour of my pardon she was one of the most indefatigable workers for us.
A few years ago failing health compelled her removal from Minnesota to Idaho, and Minnesota lost one of the brightest newspaper writers and one of the best and truest women and staunchest friends that a man ever knew. Jim and I had a host of earnest advocates during the latter years of our imprisonment, but none exceeded in devotion the young woman who, as a little tot, had ridden, unknowingly, with the bandit who was so soon to be exiled for life from all his kin and friends.
28. The Northfield Raid
While Pitts and I were waiting for Bob and Chadwell we scouted about, going to Madelia and as far as the eastern part of Cotton-wood county, to familiarize ourselves with the country. Finally, a few days later, the boys joined us, having bought their horses at Mankato.
We then divided into two parties and started for Northfield by somewhat different routes. Monday night, Sept. 4, our party were at Le Sueur Center, and court being in session, we had to sleep on the floor. The hotel was full of lawyers, and they, with the judge and other court attendants, had a high old time that night. Tuesday night we were at Cordova, a little village in Le Sueur county, and Wednesday night in Millersburg, eleven miles west of Northfield. Bob and his party were then at Cannon City, to the south of Northfield. We reunited Thursday morning, Sept. 7, a little outside Northfield, west of the Cannon river.