“Deacon Atwood, that was wrong then. You ought never to have killed them men after taking them prisoners.”
Dea. A.—“I agree with you there.”
Uncle Jesse.—“They ought not to have killed them after they stopped fighting.”
Dea. A.—“They ought never to have stopped fighting till they killed them in the fight!”
Uncle Jesse.—“They didn’t kill any of them in the fight; they must have been very poor marksmen, as many as they was there, and couldn’t kill anybody, and had to wait till they got out of ammunition, and then took ’em out and killed ’em. Why didn’t they let ’em be taken by the law, and be tried and had justice done ’em?”
Dea. A.—“I suppose the men were so ambitious that they didn’t intend they should live. Now I tell you, Jesse, what this Georgia gentleman said, isn’t so. Bardon Ramol and Bob Blending met a young nigger this morning just before they got to Horse Creek, a coming home, and Bardon he says to him, ‘Now, don’t you go down there. Didn’t you hear the guns down there last night? The last one is killed, and it’s all over, and it an’t worth while to go.’”
Uncle Jesse.—“And so they got him to turn back? That’s well enough, but not much.”
Dea. A.—“Yes. Now they’re accusing Sam Payne, and Tad Volier—that little fellow not more’n four feet high—to day, and I’ll swear it’s a lie; for them men were not killed by anybody that is on this side the river.”
Jesse Roome did not tell his neighbor how well all this conversation assured him that he was privy to all the plans, at least; but simply asked, “Sam Payne was not there?”
Dea. A.—“No, Jesse, he wasn’t there.”