Life and adventures of Frank and Jesse James, the noted western outlaws

by J. A. Dacus

Death of Oll Shepherd.

Meanwhile, George Shepherd, shut out from the world, toiled on at his unrequited tasks in the penitentiary at Frankfort. He who had been the free rover and wild Guerrilla, the dauntless rider and relentless foe, in the garb of a convict did service to the State, and answered not again when ordered to his daily rounds of labor. And he alone of the survivors of that band of freebooters who rode so fearlessly and madly into Russellville that morning, bent on mischief and crime, was made to feel the heavy rod of retributive justice. Oll Shepherd had perished. Nemesis had overtaken some of the old Guerrillas.

CHAPTER XIII.
ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

Immediately after the Russellville robbery, Jesse James appeared once more in his old haunts in Missouri. But his physical system had been greatly taxed by the tremendous strain to which it had been subjected. Twice already had he received bullet wounds through the lungs which would have killed any man less extraordinarily endowed with vitality. Scars of twenty wounds were on his person, and yet the man who had gone out from home as a boy; entered into close affiliation with a band of the most daring and desperate men ever organized in America; sustained his part with them, and even surpassed them all in the daring feats they accomplished ere yet the "manly beard had shaded his face," after having passed through more exciting scenes than any living man, and participated in more terrible encounters than most men, yet survived, and though his terrible wounds had weakened his frame, yet his wonderful courage and tremendous reserve of vital forces were such as to insure his final restoration to complete health.

He had traveled on horseback from the little town of Chaplin, on the eastern verge of Nelson county, in Central Kentucky, to the western border of Missouri, in the space of a few days subsequent to the 20th of March, 1869. Jesse James was seen in Clay county, Missouri, in the first days of April of that year, and was seen at Chaplin on the 18th of March. That he was at Russellville the evidence seems to be clear; and that he led a most exciting retreat from that place, through the hill country of Kentucky, until he reached the banks of the Mississippi, is one of the facts of his history. It was his genius which enabled his confederates to escape from a determined pursuit of resolute men. Once on the west bank of the Mississippi, to use a Westernism, "he was on his own stamping ground." He knew every "trail" across the swamps of Southeastern Missouri, and every pathway in the tangled brakes over the rugged hills of the southern counties of that State, were as familiar to him as the woodlands about the old farm in Clay county. He knew more—that there were scattered through the country from Chaplin to Kearney, a route of more than five hundred miles in length, men with the reputation of respectable members of society, who always had a warm welcome for him and his daring men. Who, then, could pursue and capture him? There is no room for wonder that Jesse James escaped the irate Kentuckians, who followed his trail from Russellville to the banks of the Mississippi, and finally lost it among the rugged hills and vast forests west of the river.

Jesse's extraordinary journeys under such circumstances did not tend to the restoration of his physical system, which had been greatly shattered by the terrible wounds which he had received at the close of the war, in an encounter with a company of Federal soldiers in Lafayette county.

In those days the friends of the Jameses were numerous in the State of Missouri; for at that time scarcely any one believed that they had developed into brigands. Among those who advised with Jesse James at that time was his physician and friend, Dr. Joseph Wood, of Kansas City. It was the opinion of this physician that the condition of his patient imperatively demanded a change of scene, and a more genial climate to insure his restoration.

In accordance with this advice, the patient set about his preparations for a voyage by sea, and a sojourn on the Pacific slope.