Charles W. Quantrell

by Harrison Trow; John P. Burch

Then the Jayhawker rose up from the midst of his spoils with a sort of quiet dignity, lifted his hat as if to let his brow feel the north wind, and faced without a tremor the pistol which covered him.

“I cannot kill you so,” Webb faltered, “nor do I know whether I can kill you at all. We must take a vote first.”

Then to himself: “To shoot an unarmed man, and a brave man at that, is awful.”

There amid the sausages and cheese, the turkeys and the coffee grains, the dried apples and the green, five men sat down in judgment upon two. Whitsett held the hat; Webster fashioned the ballots. No arguments were had. The five self-appointed jurors were five among Quantrell’s best and bravest. In extremity they had always stood forth ready to fight to the death; in the way of killing they had done their share. The two Kansas Jayhawkers came close together as if in the final summing up they might find in the mere act of dying together some solace. One by one the Guerrillas put into the hat of Whitsett a piece of paper upon which was written his vote. All had voted. Harrison Trow drew forth the ballots silently. As he unfolded the first and read from it deliberately; “Death,” the younger Jayhawker blanched to his chin and put a hand on the shoulder of his comrade. The two listened to the count, with every human faculty roused and abnormally impressionable. Should any one not understanding the scene pass, they would not be able to comprehend the situation—one man standing bareheaded, solemnly, and all the eyes bent keenly forward as another man drew from a hat a dirty slip of folded paper and read therefrom something that was short like a monosyllable and sepulchral like a shroud.

“Life,” said the second ballot, and “Life” said the third. The fourth was for death and made a tie. Something like the beating of a strong man’s heart might have been heard, and something as though a brave man were breathing painfully through his teeth lest a sigh escape him. Whitsett cried out: “One more ballot yet to be opened. Let it tell the tale, Trow, and make an end to this thing speedily.” Trow, with scarcely any more emotion than a surgeon has when he probes a bullet wound, unfolded the remaining slip of paper, and read, “Life”!

The younger Jayhawker fell upon his knees and the elder ejaculated solemnly: “Thank God, how glad my wife will be.”

Webb breathed as one from whose breast a great load had been lifted and put back into its scabbard his revolver. The verdict surprised him all the more because it was so totally unexpected, and yet the two men there—Jayhawkers though they were and loaded with spoils of plundered farm houses—were as free to go as the north wind that blew or the stream that was running by.

As they rode away the Guerrillas did not even suggest to one another the virtue of the parole. At the two extremities of their peculiar warfare there was either life or death. Having chosen deliberately as between the two, no middle ground was known to them.

Press Webb approached to within sight of Kansas City from the old Independence road, made a complete circle about the place, as difficult as the traveling was, entered Westport notwithstanding the presence of a garrison there; heard many things told of the plans and number of the Federal forces upon the border; passed down between the Kansas river and what is now known as West Kansas City, killed three foragers and captured two six-mule wagons near the site of the present gas works; gathered up five head of excellent horses, and concealed himself for two days in the Blue Bottom, watching a somewhat notorious bawdy house much frequented by Federal soldiers. This kind of houses during the war, and when located upon dangerous or debatable grounds, were man traps of more or less sinister histories.

Eleven women belonged to this bagnio proper, but on the night Webb stalked it and struck it, there had come five additional inmates from other quarters equally as disreputable. Altogether the male attendants numbered twenty, two lieutenants, one sergeant major, a corporal, four citizens and twelve privates from an Iowa regiment. Webb’s attacking column, not much larger than a yard stick, was composed of the original detail, four besides himself.