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

by J. A. Dacus

At this the alarmed traveller crouched down behind a seat.

It was nightfall when the robbers rode away. Gadshill is in the midst of a wilderness country. There are but few settlements among the hills, and it was impossible to organize an effective posse at once for pursuit. At Piedmont, on the arrival of the train, the news was telegraphed to St. Louis and Little Rock. The citizens of that vicinity were aroused, and before midnight a well armed posse of a dozen men were riding over the hills westward in pursuit.

But the robbers, who were all mounted on blooded horses, rode swiftly away. Before the dawn of day they were sixty miles from the scene of the crime. They called at the residence of a widow lady named Cook, one mile above Carpentersville, on the Current river, to obtain a breakfast. There were but five of them in the party, and these were each armed with a pair of pistols and a repeating rifle. They continued on, and passed Mr. Payne's on the Big Piney, in Texas county, and went to the house of the Hon. Mr. Mason, then a member of the State Legislature, and who was at that time absent attending its session, and demanded food and lodging from Mrs. Mason. They remained there all night, and proceeded westward in the morning. The same day that the five men took breakfast with Mrs. Cook, a dozen pursuers from Gadshill and Piedmont arrived at the same place, having tracked them sixty miles.

CHAPTER XXV.
AFTER GADSHILL.

The bold act of brigandage at Gadshill aroused the whole country. The outlaws had become formidable. Missouri and Arkansas were alike interested, and the citizens of both states were ready to make personal sacrifices to aid in the capture of such daring brigands. But who were the robbers? A question not easy to answer with any assurance of correctness. Some said at once that it was the Jameses and the Youngers and their associates. Geo. W. Shepherd, one of Quantrell's most daring Guerrillas in Missouri, and one of those who separated from him when he went to Kentucky, was an intimate friend of the Jameses in the old Guerrilla times. After the war Shepherd emigrated to Kentucky and married at Chaplin, Nelson county, where he settled down. After Russellville, circumstances pointed to him as one of the persons implicated in the robbery. He was arrested, carried to Logan county and tried. The proof was of such a character that he was found guilty of aiding and abetting the robbers, and was sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of three years. At the expiration of his sentence he returned to Chaplin and learned that during his incarceration his wife had obtained a divorce and married another man. Shepherd had paid $600 on the house and lot which he found his ex-wife and husband occupying. But he left them there and took his departure from Kentucky. At the time of the Gadshill affair he was somewhere in Missouri. But there is not a particle of evidence to connect him with the robbery.

Bradley Collins was a noted desperado in those days, who figured in Texas and the Indian Territory as one of the worst outlaws in the business. He also rode at times with the Jameses and the Youngers. John Chunk was another daring outlaw who infested Texas and the Indian Territory, and often came into Missouri and co-operated with the brigands of that state.

Sid Wallace, afterwards hanged at Clarksville, Arkansas, was another noted outlaw between the years 1866 and 1874. He, too, was a "friend" of the Jameses. Cal Carter, Jim Reed, John Wes. Hardin, Sam Bass, Bill Longley, Tom Taylor and Jim Clark, all notorious in Texas and the Nation, often joined the Missouri outlaws and hunted with them. Indeed, it appears that there was a regularly organized band of brigands ramifying through the states of Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, the Indian Territory and Texas. This banditti was composed of the most desperate and daring men who had ever placed themselves beyond the pale of the law in this country.

Whatever doubts might once have existed concerning the personality of the bandits of Gadshill, they have all vanished in the light of subsequent events. Jesse and Frank James, some of the Youngers and their associates, were undoubtedly the men who rode to Gadshill. The fellows seemed to have had a bit of classical humor in their composition in selecting a place so named as the scene of such an exploit.

It seemed to have created a conviction in the minds of those in authority, also, that the Jameses were the leaders. Governor Woodson, of Missouri, offered a reward to the full extent of the law's provisions. Governor Baxter, of Arkansas, communicated to Governor Woodson his desire to aid in the capture of the outlaws, and also offered a reward. The express company offered a heavy reward for the capture of the bandits, and the United States authorities took an active interest in the movement set on foot to break up the formidable banditti. Stimulated by the prospect of gain, the detectives all over the country became active in the pursuit. The citizens, too, were on the move, and it seemed that the auguries all pointed to a speedy annihilation of this formidable gang which infested the West.