lia.

31. SOME PRIVATE HISTORY

Every blood-and-thunder history of the Younger brothers declares that
Frank and Jesse James were the two members of the band that entered
Northfield who escaped arrest or death.

They were not, however. One of those two men was killed afterward in
Arizona and the other died from fever some years afterward.

There were reasons why the James and the Younger brothers could not take
part in any such project as that at Northfield.

Frank James and I came together as soldiers some little time before the
Lawrence raid. He was a good soldier, and while he never was higher than
a private the distinctions between the officers and the men were not as
finely drawn in Quantrell's command as they are nowadays in military life.
As far back as 1862, Frank James and I formed a friendship, which has
existed to this day.

Jesse James I never met, as I have already related, until the early summer
of 1866. The fact that all of us were liable to the visits of posses when
least expected gave us one interest in common, the only one we ever did
have, although we were thrown together more or less through my friendship
with Frank James.

The beginning of my trouble with Jesse came in 1872, when George W.
Shepherd returned to Lee's Summit after serving a term in prison in
Kentucky for the bank robbery at Russellville in 1868.

Jesse had told me that Shepherd was gunning for me, and accordingly one
night, when Shepherd came late to the home of Silas Hudspeth, where I was,
I was prepared for trouble, as in fact, I always was anyway.

When Shepherd called, Hudspeth shut the door again, and told me who was
outside. I said "let him in," and stepping to the door with my pistol in
my hand, I said:

"Shepherd, I am in here; you're not afraid, are you?"

"That's all right," he answered. "Of course I'm not afraid." The three
of us talked till bedtime, when Hudspeth told us to occupy the same bed.
I climbed in behind, and as was my custom, took my pistol to bed with me.
Shepherd says he did not sleep a wink that night, but I did. At breakfast
next morning, I said:

"I heard yesterday that you intended to kill me on sight; have you lost
your nerve?"

"Who told you that, Cole?" he answered.

"I met Jess yesterday and he told me that you sent that message to me by
him."

Soon after I met Jesse James, and but for the interference of friends we
would have shot it out then and there.

My feeling