“my lad, and follow its precepts. Do not let them lead you astray. For your part in our capture I freely forgive you.”
Every opportunity he could get when ladies were present, he would ask them to pray for him, and he would incessantly talk on religious subjects and his previous history, laying the blame of his position to the “force of circumstances,” tracing the beginning of his trouble to the “murder of his father by a band of militia thieves.”
He said that many of the great crimes for which he and his companions were blamed, he had nothing at all to do with.
There were not a few of the visitors who were of the opinion that Cole Younger was
FOXING IT,
and that he was trying to play off the “pious dodge,” awakening commisseration and sympathy from the tender-hearted and religious. The asperity and bitter irony shown when a lady less sympathizing and more matter of-fact than most of his visitors spoke severely of his disgraceful position and degraded life led many to think that Cole is a consumate actor and an arch hypocrite.
When asked why they went to the Northfield bank, and whether it was not more risky than even Mankato banks, he said he told the others at the first that it was
A DANGEROUS UNDERTAKING,
and if they had taken his advice, they would not have gone out to [pg 61] Northfield. There was no means of getting away, for the roads were bad and the woods filled with lakes and sloughs. It would have been better for the band to have gone across the prairie from Mankato, for then they would have had some $30 each.
He was asked if he had tried to shoot any one, when he pointed out the fact that seven of the men were almost within hand's-reach of them, and asked what good would it have done him if all the seven were killed. There were men enough at long range with rifles to shoot him and his party down at their leisure.