CHAPTER XLIX.GEORGE W. SHEPHERD.

The name of George W. Shepherd, which attained prominence during the old Guerrilla times, when he was one of Quantrell's most trusted lieutenants, had passed out of the public mind, in a measure, until the events following the Glendale train robbery once more brought it prominently before the country.

At the time of the affair at Glendale, Shepherd was following a peaceful avocation in Kansas City. It was known to the marshal of that place, and other officers of the law, that the relations subsisting between the James Boys and Shepherd had been rather unfriendly for several years, and overtures were made looking to his engaging in the pursuit of the outlaws. Shepherd's reputation for desperate courage was not inferior to that of any other man in the days when he led a band of Quantrell's men, and when Marshal Liggett, of Kansas City, had obtained his consent to engage in the desperate undertaking, everyone expected some sensational denouement. A history of the Jameses, after the events which occurred since Glendale, would be incomplete without some notice of George W. Shepherd, the man who is credited with engaging in a terrible conflict with Jesse W. Jamesand his followers, near Joplin, Missouri, resulting in the alleged death of the outlaw, and in Shepherd's receiving a severe wound in the left leg.

George W. Shepherd is a son of the late James Shepherd, a respectable farmer of Jackson county, Missouri. He was born near Independence, January 17th, 1842, on a farm now belonging to the Staten heirs. There were two brothers older than George, namely, John and James M., and one brother his junior, whose name was William. J. M. Shepherd is now a respectable farmer in Jackson county. During his boyhood, George resided with his parents on the farm, and when of sufficient age he attended the neighborhood school for a few months every summer and winter until he was able "to read, write and cipher," as he expressed it. In early youth he manifested an adventurous and somewhat wayward disposition. In 1857 he left home and proceeded to Utah, where he joined the army, at that time operating against the Mormons under the command of General Albert Sydney Johnston. The Shepherd family, which originally came from Virginia, were a race of pioneers, and the disposition of the subject of this notice to seek exciting adventure on the borderland of civilization was legitimately inherited.

After a varied experience, and absence of two years, George returned to Missouri in the autumn of 1859, and resumed farming operations with his brothers. He continued in this employment on afarm about one mile and a half distant from Independence, until the commencement of warlike preparations in 1861. Seized by the prevailing military fever, and his surroundings being all Southern, George W. Shepherd was among the first to cast his lot with the Confederate recruits. He enlisted in company A, Captain Duncan's, of Rosser's regiment. This command participated in the great battles fought at Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge, and engaged in many other skirmishes in Missouri and Arkansas, in all of which he took a part. When the Confederate army, under the command of General Sterling Price, was ordered to the east of the Mississippi, young Shepherd returned to Jackson county, and soon afterward joined Quantrell's command of Guerrillas.

The war record of Shepherd would fill a volume if written out in full. For this we have not the space. We can only summarize the chief events in this part of his career. We first hear of George Shepherd in a desperate charge made by Quantrell's men on the garrison at Independence, in February, 1862. On that occasion he and a comrade, William Gregg, swept down one of the streets of Independence, causing the greatest consternation, and inflicting no little damage on the soldiers of Col. Burris' command. From that day forward Shepherd took rank among the most daring of Quantrell's men.

When Quantrell's small command of twenty men was surrounded at night by a large Federal force,while asleep in the Tate house, near Santa Fe, Jackson county, Missouri, in March 1862, Shepherd was with the Guerrillas there, and was selected to guard one of the doors of the house. The conflict which ensued was terrible. After some minutes' fighting, and when the house had been fired, the Federals desired a parley with a view of inducing the Guerrillas to surrender. Shepherd commanded the men who defended the lower rooms of the house. He asked for twenty minutes time. It could not be granted. For ten minutes. No. For five minutes then. No, if the Guerrillas did not yield within one minute, not a man of them should escape, was the ultimatum of the Federal officer. "Then count sixty," exclaimed Shepherd, "and take the consequences." The fight was renewed. That house had become a pandemonium. In it were such men as Cole Younger, Stephen Shores, John Jarrette, James Little, Hoy, Haller, and others. The Federal commander permitted Major Tate and his family to leave the house. Then the fighting was resumed more fiercely than before. The building was on fire. It was manifest that the Guerrillas would be forced to evacuate their fortress. It was resolved to break through the Federal line. Quantrell led the desperate charge, followed by George Shepherd, Jarrette, Younger, Toler, Little, Hoy and others. Seventeen men made the attempt, and succeeded in making their escape. Three had surrendered before the attempt was made.

Once, in the spring of 1862, George Shepherd, Cole Younger and Oliver Shepherd were surrounded at the house of John Shepherd, in Jackson county. Their peril was imminent. The Federal force numbered ten to their one. Cole Younger was about to lead a desperate sortie, when Martin Shepherd, Scott, Little and John Coger came up and attacked the Federals in the rear. The diversion enabled the Shepherds and Younger to escape from the house.

Soon after the incident noted above, George Shepherd and Cole Younger were detailed to go into Jackson county for the purpose of collecting ammunition. They had collected a large amount of the materials of war which were most needed in Quantrell's command. One day they went to find a wagon to convey the ammunition to camp. They were at a house behind which was an orchard, and this had been sown in rye which was now tall and luxuriant. While at this house seventy-five Federal troopers surrounded the place, and demanded their surrender. They refused, and made a rush to the rye-grown orchard ground, where they had hitched their horses. Beyond the orchard was a skirt of timber, now clothed in luxuriant green. They gained the orchard in safety, although followed by a storm of bullets. Mounting, they made a dash for the forest. But they were not destined to reach it unscathed. Three buckshot had penetrated the body of Cole Younger, and George Shepherd was hit hard and badly wounded. He, however, continuedhis flight until he reached a shelter where he could receive surgical attention.

It was about harvest time, 1862, that Major Peabody undertook to capture Quantrell's band by a vigorous movement with superior forces. The two joined issue at Swearingen's place, a few miles from Pleasant Hill, Cass county. A series of desperate encounters followed. The Guerrillas were forced to seek shelter in the woods. In the fights which ensued, George Shepherd lost his horse. The Guerrillas suffered fearfully, both in the neighborhood of Swearingen's barn, and later in a depression near Fred. Farmer's house. A number of Quantrell's followers were seriously wounded. George Shepherd had great difficulty in escaping from this sanguinary engagement. He was again wounded, though not severely.

Col. Upton Hayes, Col. Gideon Thompson and Col. John T. Hughes, co-operating, resolved upon attacking Independence, then garrisoned by a Federal force of about five hundred men, under command of Col. J. T. Buell, now of St. Louis. The Confederate forces numbered about seven hundred. Quantrell was requested to aid the enterprise, and joined his forces with the regular Confederate troops in an attack on Independence. George Shepherd was there, and fought with desperate valor. After the battle was over, when Quantrell was asked to name the men of his command who had most distinguished themselves for daring courage, GeorgeShepherd was designated as one among half a dozen others.

In the early days of the autumn of 1862, George Todd, commanding about fifty men, prepared an ambuscade, with rifle pits, on the road leading from Kansas City to Harrisonville. The place was admirably selected, and the utmost caution and vigilance was observed in guarding it, but it came near being a slaughter-pen for the Guerrillas. One evening he succeeded in destroying a wagon train, and scattering the escort which accompanied it. But sometime afterward, Gregg, Scott, Haller and Shepherd, with a number of followers, re-occupied the rifle pits. George Shepherd was sent out on the road toward Harrisonville, south of the ambuscade. It was, perhaps, past ten o'clock at night. The rifle pits were still, and the droning hum of insects was the only sound to break the silence. Shepherd was motionless at his post down the road. Suddenly he was made conscious of the presence of an enemy, by a tall form which rose up at his right stirrup—a form which had apparently come from the shadows around him. But it was no apparition conjured up by a disordered brain. The leveling of a gun barrel at his breast, and the sharp utterance of the single word, "Surrender!" convinced George Shepherd that the form was very real. A glance satisfied him that crouching forms were all about him, and all were armed. He threw himself forward, shot the dismounted trooper in the breast as he whirled hishorse around, and received a scattering volley as he dashed away to arouse his comrades in the rifle pits. The Federal forces were under command of Major Hubbard, a gallant officer of the Sixth Missouri Cavalry. He had received full information about Todd's rifle pits, had dismounted his command, and but for Shepherd's extraordinary nerve and presence of mind, he would have made a complete surprise of the Guerrilla garrison. As it was, a terrible conflictensued, and a number of Federals were killed and eight of the Guerrillas were wounded, among them Shepherd, who received a slight flesh wound.

Geo. W. Shepherd.

In August, 1863, Quantrell began to rally around his standard all the small, detached bands in Western Missouri for his expedition against Lawrence, Kansas. At this time Shepherd was one of his confidential advisers. In that grim council of war, summoned by the Guerrilla chieftain to consider the feasibility of engaging in such an enterprise, George Shepherd sat among the stern, relentless warriors of the border.

When Fletcher Taylor returned from Lawrence, whither he had gone to obtain information concerning the military situation there, and made his report at Quantrell's headquarters to the assembled leaders, the Chief spoke:

"You have heard the report. Before you decide, you should know it all. The march to Lawrence is a long one; in every little village there are soldiers. We leave soldiers behind us; we march between garrisons of soldiers; we attack a town guarded by soldiers; we must retreat through swarms of armed men; and when we would rest after such an exhaustive march, we must do so with soldiers all about us, and do the best we can. Come, speak out, somebody! What is it, Shepherd?"

Thus appealed to, the answer came deliberately and firmly from George Shepherd:

"Lawrence! I know the place of old. Theymake no difference there between negroes and white people. It is a Boston colony, and it should be cleared out."

And the others gave similar replies, and so the expedition, which was destined to be fraught with consequences so baleful, was resolved upon. George Shepherd went with the rest of the command, and in the terrors and tragedies of that dreadful day, he had his share.

The winter of 1863-4, Shepherd spent in Quantrell's camp, in the vicinity of Sherman, Texas, leading a comparatively inactive life; but the following summer he was engaged in innumerable skirmishes. At Pink Hill, in Johnson county, at Pleasant Hill, at Keytesville, and many other places the fighting was severe. Then came the mustering to aid General Price. In that summer campaign the Guerrillas took a conspicuous part. Toward the middle of September, Bill Anderson was carrying destruction to many neighborhoods in North Missouri. Todd and Anderson combined, had a force of a little more than two hundred men. In this troop rode George Shepherd. He was present at Centralia. The particulars of that dreadful day's work are given in another place in this volume, and need not now be recited. It may be accepted as a fact that George Shepherd performed his part in that carnival of Death.

Price and Shelby were compelled to retire from Missouri. In a desperate encounter with the Federaladvance, in pursuit of the retiring Confederate army, Todd, who was protecting the rear, was killed. George Shepherd succeeded him in the command, and after lingering awhile in Missouri, he led the remainder of the once formidable band of Guerrillas, save about twenty men, who went with Quantrell into Kentucky—to Texas. The forces under Shepherd had fighting all the way. The Indians beset their pathway and struck at them viciously as they marched. Among those who went to Texas with this force was Jesse James. In the following spring the Guerrillas, or at least a part of them, returned. The cause of the Confederacy had suffered. Lee surrendered. Johnston followed. The catastrophe came; the Confederacy was no more. Then the Guerrillas of Missouri were permitted to go in and surrender, and all save eight men of the band which Shepherd had led back from Texas surrendered. His career as a Guerrilla had ended, and Shepherd went to Kentucky soon after the close of the war.

CHAPTER L.PURSUIT OF THE GLENDALE ROBBERS.

During the days succeeding the robbery, the marshal had learned sufficient to satisfy him that the robbers had gone into retreat in Clay county; and becoming aware of the fact that Shepherd was working in Kansas City, the officer sought him out and engaged him as a detective to assist him in the pursuit. Shepherd consented, and it was arranged that he should, in some way, place himself in communication with the gang. The unfriendly relations existing between Shepherd and the Jameses presented a serious difficulty. The plan adopted to overcome this was shrewdly devised. A story was told, and industriously circulated, that it was a matter of little doubt that George W. Shepherd was engaged in the robbery, and that in consequence he had fled to parts unknown. This was not all; Marshal Liggett had printed on a slip of paper, already printed on one side, an item to the effect that Shepherd was believed to be implicated in the robbery. It was reported to have been clipped from one of the Kansas City papers. What follows in relation to this enterprise is based upon the statements of Shepherd. He relates that he went to Clay county, visited the residence of Mrs. Samuels; saw that lady;told her a story about his persecution by the detectives about the Glendale business; showed her the pseudo newspaper clipping, and expressed a desire to become a member of the gang; that he was blindfolded; led a long way, and when relieved of his eye bandages, he found himself in the midst of the gang confronted by Jesse James; that his reception was anything but pleasant, but that finally he was able to convince them that he, like themselves, was hunted; that he became cognizant of all their plans, and then sought and obtained permission to go into Kansas City after having taken a terrible oath to reveal nothing and act true in every respect with the band. He came into Kansas City, related all that he had seen and heard to the marshal; was furnished a fleet horse, pistols and blankets, and returned to the gang. Liggett was informed by Shepherd that they would leave Clay county at a certain time; that they would cross near Sibley at a certain other time, and would be at a certain place at a certain hour, where he could see them if he so desired. Marshal Liggett, acting upon this information, proceeded to the point designated, and at the hour named he had the satisfaction of seeing a party of armed men cross at the previously announced place, and among them recognized his chosen detective, Shepherd. The robbers passed on southward. Rogue's Island is in the river Marais des Cygnes, not far from Fort Scott. Here the band camped one night. Their plan was to rob the bank of Street & McArthur at Short Creek,Kansas. This was to be effected on Sunday evening, Nov. 2d, at 3 o'clock. When Shepherd arrived in the camp on Shoal Creek, about nine miles southeast of Short Creek, he exhibited his pseudo news item to Jesse James, and in other ways succeeded in convincing him that he was also an outlaw, and Shepherd was thenceforward treated as "a man and a brother." He states that the party consisted of Jesse James, Jim Cummings, Ed. Miller, and Sam Kaufman. It has been ascertained that the person who was supposed to be Sam Kaufman was one Blackamore. The plan to rob the bank was known to the authorities, and contrary to the pre-arranged measures for the capture of the outlaws, the guard of armed men who were to have been in waiting at the hour appointed for the raid, went on duty early in the morning. Jesse James that morning went from the Shoal Creek camp to Short Creek, and was in the town when the guardsmen assumed their places, and he noted everything. Of course this mistake on the part of those engaged in the efforts to capture them, caused a change in the plans of the gang. Shepherd, well armed and mounted, rode to the camp in the afternoon, after having been informed by Jesse James of the situation at Short Creek in the morning when they met. He found the brigands much alarmed, preparing to break camp. Mike and Tom Cleary, two of Shepherd's assistants, were to form an ambuscade, but this part of the arrangement failed because of the sudden movement of the band. Shepherdwas to proceed to camp, provoke a quarrel with Jesse, shoot him and flee, when of course the other members of the gang would follow. But the camp was broken up too soon. The ambushers could not reach their place in time. Shepherd relates that they were riding scattered out in the woods; that he was riding near, and a little in the rear of Jesse James; that he suddenly drew a pistol, called out, "Damn you, Jesse James! thirteen years ago you killed my cousin, Frank Shepherd." At the first word Jesse wheeled his horse and sought his pistol. He was too late. Shepherd fired, the ball taking effect just behind the left ear, and Jesse James fell heavily to the ground. After firing, Shepherd says no one moved for a few seconds, when he, suddenly realizing his position, wheeled his horse around, and driving his spurs deep into the animal's flanks, dashed away. At the same time Cummings rode furiously toward him, while Miller went to the assistance of the fallen chief. The pursuit of Cummings was persistent and rapid. Blackamore soon fell behind in the chase, but Cummings gained on Shepherd until at last it became necessary for the latter to make a stand and fight it out there. As he wheeled his horse to carry out this resolution, a ball from Cummings' pistol took effect in the calf of Shepherd's left leg. The firing which had been maintained during a chase of three miles, now became quick and furious, and the result for a time was doubtful. At last, Shepherd says, a ball tookeffect in Cummings' side, and he turned his horse and rode back through the woods by the way they came. Shepherd rode into Short Creek to have his wound attended to.

The foregoing is Shepherd's account of his pursuit of the Glendale robbers and contest with Jesse James. But developments since do not sustain the statements in many important particulars. The relation appears to be correct up to the time of the shooting, but it is now clear that he did not wound Jesse James.

The truth is, that Jesse James was at all times suspicious of Shepherd's motives, and from the time he joined them he was watched with a ceaseless vigilance. The outlaws had little confidence in his protestations, and his movements were carefully observed. They went into camp on Shoal Creek, Shepherd being with them. According to their custom they arranged to remove to another camping place about three miles away the next day. It was Saturday night, and Shepherd obtained the consent of his ostensible confederates to go into Short Creek. One of the brigands, assuming a disguise, followed him for the purpose of watching his movements.

This man discovered that Shepherd was laying a train for the capture of the band. During Sunday morning, it appears Shepherd met Jesse James, who informed him that "the game was up" in Short Creek, and that they had been given away. Shepherdagreed in this view of the situation, and the two separated. Later in the day Shepherd went to the camp, where he had left them. It was deserted, but he found their trail, and followed it to where the new camp was established. The fact that it was not the place which had been selected in Shepherd's presence ought to have warned him that his situation was one of extreme peril. But it appears that he did not consider this evidence that he was distrusted, and approached the camp. The moment he appeared Jim Cummings opened fire upon him, and mounting his horse gave chase. Both men were well mounted, but Cummings' horse was the superior one of the two. Shepherd, placing the reins of the bridle in his teeth, and drawing two revolvers, the fight commenced. He received a bullet wound in the calf of his left leg, and in turn shot Cummings in the right side, which fractured the sixth rib and wounded the intercostal artery. Some fragments of clothing, driven into the wound, arrested the flow of blood from the artery, else the probabilities are that the wound would have proved fatal. As it was, the surgeon, who has furnished the above facts, removed the foreign matter, took out some fragments of bone, put a ligature on the artery, and in a short time the wounded bandit went on his way.

It is asserted as a fact, that Jesse James was neither wounded nor killed, but rode away a picture of health and vitality. The peril of Shepherd was imminent. Had he not wounded Cummings, thatdesperado would soon have come up with him, when the death of one or both of them would have been inevitable.

The whole relation but confirms what has been reiterated in the pages of this volume, that the resources and shrewdness of Jesse James are truly wonderful; that in all respects he and his brother are men of extraordinary capacity, and that in courage, skill, adroitness, and vitality, they are men strangely endowed. What they may yet accomplish is hidden in the unrevealed future, which to our questioning returns no answer.

CHAPTER LI.ALLEN PARMER.

Allen Parmer is a Missourian. His boyhood days were passed principally in Jackson county. When the late war broke over the country, Allen Parmer was a youth, little fitted to enter the ranks with fighting men. Yet he became a member of Quantrell's band. He first came into prominence among his comrades in August, 1863, at the capture and sack of Lawrence, Kansas. That day Parmer was a member of the squad led by Bill Anderson, who murdered without compunction and destroyed without feeling. He escaped with the rest of the band. He was at Independence; at Lone Jack; at Camden; at Weston; in their lairs among the Sni Hills, and along the waters of the Blues. He was one of the six men who remained with Todd at Judge Gray's house, near Bone Hill, Jackson county, when Captain John Chestnut arrived in that neighborhood, in September, 1864, bearing a communication from General Price to the Guerrillas, which at once caused a rally of the old partisans. He was selected by Lieut. Geo. W. Shepherd as one of the picked men ordered on a dangerous expedition to the north side of the Missouri. The Guerrilla campaign there was short but bloody. The terriblemassacre and rout at Centralia was the crowning event, and Parmer performed a conspicuous part in that conflict. All through the operations of the Guerrillas he was one of the most daring in the band. He was one of the executioners of Bradley Bond, a militiaman of Clay county. He and Frank James captured the man, and afterward he was shot.

Allen Parmer.(Williams & Thomson, Photographers, Kansas City, Mo.)

Allen Parmer.

(Williams & Thomson, Photographers, Kansas City, Mo.)

When Missouri no longer offered a field for operations, and Quantrell entered upon his last campaignin Kentucky, Allen Parmer was one of the old Guerrillas who followed him. The Federal garrison was compelled to surrender at Hustonville, Lincoln county, Kentucky. Thenceforward Quantrell was known in his true character. In a fight in Jessamine county, George Roberson and a member of Quantrell's command, was captured, taken to Louisville, and confined in prison, but subsequently escaped. Afterward he was captured again, taken to Lexington, transferred to Louisville once more, and there arraigned before a court-martial, tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged on a charge of murdering the Federal major at Hustonville, who fell by the hand of Parmer. Roberson was afterward publicly executed at Louisville.

Parmer took part in all the dreadful frays of Quantrell's little band in Kentucky.

When peace once more brooded over the land, he returned to Missouri, and commenced a commission business in St. Louis, with J. W. Shawhan for a partner, under the style of Shawhan & Co. This was in 1866. It does not appear that the firm was very successful. Parmer is said to have lost several thousand dollars in this venture. Later, the business was closed out. Payne Jones, and some others, among them Jim White, a friend of Parmer, were implicated in a bank robbery at Richmond, Mo. Mayor Shaw was killed at that time. Suspicion attached to Parmer as being one of the robbers, and he was arrested, but, on examination, discharged. Thenhe led a sort of roving life for some years, sometimes in Missouri, then in Texas, sometimes in Colorado, then in the Indian Territory. Finally he came to regard Texas as his home. In 1870 he returned to Jackson county, where his boyhood had been passed. For a long time his relations with the James family had been friendly, and when he came to woo Miss Susan James, the sister of Frank and Jesse, she did not deny his suit, and they were married, and removed to Arkansas the same year. He remained in that state during the autumn and winter, and in the spring of 1871 he removed with his family to Texas. For a time, his wife taught a school at Sherman. Subsequently, Parmer established a ranche near Henriette, Clay county, Texas, about 120 miles west of Sherman. Clay county lies on the Red river, directly south of the Kiowa Indian reservation. Here he had all the freedom he desired, and for some years he tended his herds and was prosperous. He frequently made trips to Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago with droves of cattle.

When the train robbery at Glendale took place, the authorities sought for clues to the robbers in every direction. Mr. Grimes, the express messenger who was knocked down by one of the robbers who wore no mask, was able to give a vivid and minute description of the features of his assailant, and that description suited the personnel of Parmer. Deputy Marshal Whig Keshlear was dispatched to Texas by Marshal Liggett to effect Parmer's arrest.He proceeded to Sherman, where he met and conferred with Mr. Everhart, sheriff of Grayson county. That officer readily consented to assist in the arrest of Parmer, and proceeded at once to his ranche, near Henriette. The officers effected the arrest without difficulty on the 2d day of November, 1879, under a requisition from Governor Phelps, of Missouri.

Parmer was taken by the officers to Sherman. He was followed by a number of his friends from Clay county. There the prisoner attempted to regain his liberty by a writ ofhabeas corpus. But the judge before whom the writ was returned ruled out testimony, and remanded the prisoner to the custody of the officers from Missouri, in obedience to the requisition of the governor of that state. Parmer took exceptions and appealed. Marshal Liggett, however, had sworn out a warrant for his arrest before a United States Commissioner, charging him with interrupting the United States mail. But this was unnecessary, for, on hearing the case, the state authorities of Texas discharged the writ, and remanded the prisoner again to the custody of the Missouri officers, who at once set out for Kansas City, where they arrived with their prisoner Sunday morning, November 23d, and Parmer was promptly incarcerated in the Jackson county jail. He emphatically denied all complicity in the Glendale affair, or any knowledge of the parties who accomplished the robbery, and after four weeks' imprisonment he was discharged by the Grand Jury, the authorities failing to connect him, in any way, with the Glendale affair.

CHAPTER LII.JESSE JAMES STILL A FREE ROVER.

"Still Fate, regardless of a mortal's woe,May have reserved for him a cruel blow—A blow more dreaded than the passing breath,Of the grim spectre men call gloomy death."

"Still Fate, regardless of a mortal's woe,

May have reserved for him a cruel blow—

A blow more dreaded than the passing breath,

Of the grim spectre men call gloomy death."

It required no ordinary sagacity to escape the environments which his daring deeds had created for him, after the robbery at Glendale. Had Jesse James been other than a man of extraordinary capacity in great emergencies, his career would have been brought to an inglorious close before the clock of Time would have indicated the commencement of the New Year, 1880. But the destiny which seems to guide him once more manifested itself, and Jesse James, the bandit, rode through difficulties and dangers, and away to repose and freedom on the far off plains of Texas. There were many persons who believed that the reported death of Jesse James was true; that the account of the bloody duel between George W. Shepherd and Jim Cummings, was confirmatory of the statement of the former, that he had shot Jesse James. It is probable after that fateful Sunday in the deep recesses of a Southwest Missouri forest, and the terrible peril to which he was there subjected, that Shepherd really believed he had shot Jesse. But, be that as it may, there were many people who resolutely insisted upon it, that JesseJames rode away unscathed. Time has disclosed the fact that they were correct. Several circumstances combine to show that Jesse went away from the vicinity of Short Creek, after the Cummings-Shepherd conflict, in the enjoyment of perfect health.

A few days after Christmas, the newspapers of Kansas City announced the arrival in that city of Mrs. Jesse James, from what point they did not say, perhaps because they did not know. Mrs. James visited relatives and friends in Kansas City for several days, and her conduct was not at all like that of a recently bereaved widow. After spending some days pleasantly in the city, she proceeded with Mrs. Dr. Samuels to the residence of that lady near Kearney, Clay County, which fact was duly gazetted in the society notes of the St. Louis and Kansas City journals. Mrs. Samuels herself, though professing to believe the reports concerning the death of her son, yet did not act as though the conviction had taken a very firm hold upon her mind. Mrs. Jesse James remained some days at the residence of her mother-in-law, and then suddenly she concluded to visit her relatives and friends in Logan and Nelson Counties, Kentucky. These movements of the supposed widow of the late dreaded leader of the Glendale robbers does not appear to have attracted any great amount of attention from the officers of the law. Indeed it appears Marshal Liggett had not yet abandoned the opinion entertained by him, that George W. Shepherd had shot and seriously if not fatally wounded the noted outlaw,

One day, after the middle of January, 1880, a young man of respectability, residing in Kansas City, who had been entrusted with a certain message to deliver at Russellville, Ky., called upon another young gentleman of his acquaintance, and invited him to accompany the first-mentioned young man to Kentucky. It was a mistake on the part of the message bearer, for the young man was no admirer of the methods of the chief of the Glendale band, and, after revolving the proposition in his mind, he came to the conclusion to acquaint Major Liggett with the facts in his possession. This he did. The marshal urged him to accept the invitation, and proceed to Kentucky with his friend. It is intimated that he supplied the necessary funds to enable the young gentleman to make the journey. The two men started. There lives in Kansas City a gentleman who has known the James Boys, and who is not their enemy, even now. This gentleman received an intimation of what was going on, and learned definitely the aims of the marshal. In half an hour a message—it matters not what words were employed, they were significant—was sent to Louisville, to a friend. That friend received it, understood it, and a message was at once sent to a person in Russellville. Meanwhile, the conscientious young man and his friend journeyed in the ordinary course of travel toward Russellville. Arrived there, the message-bearer cut his companion of the journey, and the latter could learn nothing to report to the marshal of Kansas City. The person to whom the message came understood precisely what it meant, and theperson whom Pinkerton and his employees have often sought, once more found a quiet retreat, where he cannot be readily discovered.

There are several stories afloat with regard to the course taken by Jesse James after the Cummings-Shepherd conflict. The following is understood to be a correct narrative. Sunday night the party of robbers separated, each man taking a route of his own selection. Cummings was first cared for and left in a secure place. Jesse James made a detour toward the east, and then turned northward. He remained in St. Clair county two days, and came into Jackson county while the attention of everyone was directed to the marshal's posse pushing down through the Indian Territory to Texas. In Jackson county he remained for some days, and when it suited his convenience he proceeded to Texas by a route of his own selection, without molestation. Afterward he desired to enjoy a little civilized life and went to Kentucky, where he was joined by Mrs. James. But when the marshal's agent arrived in the region he was not there.

Thus the great outlaw roves at will over the country, and all the skill of men clothed with authority to entrap him has for so long a time proved unequal to the task. But it is said by those who are in a position to know, that he longs to retire from the business of an outlaw, make peace with society and prove by an exemplary life in the future that his nature is not wholly bad.

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Transcriber's note:Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies been harmonized. Obvious printer errors have been repaired. Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text. An "Illustrations" section has been added as an aid to the reader.

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