"Boys, I believe he's a detective—shoot him, at once!" was the sententious command. In an instant Governor Burbank was covered by three ready cocked dragoon pistols. The ex-Governor was on the border of time.
"Stop!" cried the robber, "I reckon it's all right. Here, take your papers."
And the ex-Governor felt that a mighty load had suddenly been lifted from him, and that a dark cloud, which but a moment before had enshrouded the world in the deepest gloom of midnight, had drifted away, allowing the bright sun to shine out on the scenes of time.
The passenger from Syracuse asked for the return of $5, to enable him to telegraph home for assistance.
The chief looked at him rather sternly for a few moments, and said:
"So, you have no friends nor money. You had better go and die. Your death would be no loss to yourself or the country. You'll get nothing back, at any rate."
All this while one of the robbers, said to have been James Younger, held a double-barrel shot-gun cocked in his hand, which he pointed ever and anon at Mr. Taylor, the supposed Democrat reporter, making such cheerful remarks as these: "Boys, I'll bet a hundred dollar bill I can shoot his hat off his head and not touch a hair on it." And the others would respond with a banter of a very uncomfortable character, while the facetious bandit went on: "Now, wouldn't that button on his coat make a good mark. I'll bet a dollar I can clip it off and not cut the coat!" With such grim jests did he amuse himself and torment the captive.
Having thoroughly accomplished their work, the bandits made the drivers hitch up their teams and drive away. The whole transaction was completed in less than ten minutes. The robbers did not linger. In a few minutes they scattered through the brush. Some "struck out," as they expressed it, for the Nation, another for Texas, and one for Louisiana.
Of course, denials of complicity on the part of the Jameses in this affair were at once entered by their friends. But it has since been ascertained that the party who did the deed consisted of Frank and Jesse James, Coleman and James Younger, and Clell Miller, one of the associates of the daring outlaws.