Horse stealing was carried on at a lively rate all along the border. Kansas, Missouri and Kentucky were particularly afflicted for many months after the surrender by the presence of these enemies of the farming and stock-raising communities.
Just about the time Frank James was passing through from Nelson county to Brandenburg, in Meade county, on the Ohio river, on his way to Missouri, a number of horses were stolen in Larue county. A posse went in pursuit of the thieves. They traced them to Brandenburg. There they found Frank James. There were four of them when they came up with James, and he was alone, sitting in the office of a hotel. By some means they induced him to come out, and then they told him he might consider himself their prisoner on a charge of horse stealing in Larue county.
"By G—d! I consider no such proposition," exclaimed Frank James, as he drew a pistol and commenced firing. In less time than it requires to state the fact, two of the posse lay extended in the embrace of death, and a third was down and writhing in agony. But the fourth man fired a shot into Frank's left hip, and then ran away.
The wounded desperado was immediately surrounded by an excited throng. The ball had taken effect at the point of his hip, and the wound produced was not only painful but dangerous. Yet the superb nerve of the man sustained him in the midst of an appalling crisis. A perfect storm of excitement was raging in the town. Threats loud and terrible were made, and Frank James coolly presented his pistols as he stood leaning against a post and ordered the excited crowd to stand back, and they obeyed him.
Somehow it has always happened that the Jameses never wanted for friends wherever they have wandered. It was so on this occasion. Though the great majority of the people of Brandenburg thirsted for the blood of the slayer of two men in their midst, yet that grim young man, though wounded and suffering, had friends at that town, and in the midst of the excitement, these came to his assistance, and he was borne away to a secure place, where the populace could not tell, and nursed by tender hands prompted by affectionate hearts. Attended by a scientific surgeon, the ghastly wound which had brought him to the very brink of the abyss of death, began to heal, and in a few weeks the surgeon who had attended the hidden patient was able to report that he would surely live and might ultimately recover entirely from the dreadful wound.
When Frank had gained some strength, and it was deemed safe to remove him, in a quiet and secret manner he was conveyed in a close vehicle to the house of a staunch friend and relative in Nelson county, where he remained during many months, suffering excruciating pain on account of the horrible wound. He did not entirely recover from the effects of the wound for several years.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LIBERTY BANK AFFAIR.
Certainly no one could say that Jesse James possessed any of the qualities which would make him
"Like one who on a lonely road