Читать книгу Life and Adventures of Frank and Jesse James - Joseph A. Dacus - Страница 10

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"Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,

The trouble or the joys? the weary maze

Of narrow fears and hopes, that may not cease,

A chill falls on us from the skiey ways,

Black with the night-tide where is none to hear

The ancient cry, the wherefore of our days."

The years come and go, and they give birth to bright and tender dreams, as well as to passions dark as Azrael's wing, and fierce as flames of Tophet. Yes, the years give joy and peace to some, and hope buds, as in the spring days the lilacs bloom. Yet time digs deep graves in which to bury our fondest hopes, and obliterates in indistinguishable night every earthly joy. It is better so. If we could draw aside the screen which hides from our ken the things of the future, who of us would enjoy the prospect?

There was a time, perhaps, when Frank and Jesse James would shudder at the thought that they should become not only soldier-slayers of men, but robbers and murderers as well. And yet they were drifting down a rapid tide toward the great black gulf of evil. A few months calls the leaves from their buds, and dresses the forest in green—a few months more and the leaves and flowers wither before the North wind's breath and the beautiful flowers and the gay leaves become loathesome in the dust of decay.

And so too, we imagine, are the changes of mind and the transformation of character. The James boys were in a school where the gentle law of mercy was never imparted; in a school where the instructors were incarnations of bitterness and hate, and every pupil devoted to the lessons they gave out. So the months rolled away and it was not long before they could listen unmoved to the last sigh of the dying victim, and send a foe before the aim of their unerring bullets, to challenge the sentinels on the farther shore of the river of death without a thought or tremor of remorse. They were fit now to take part in the most sanguinary warfare ever waged in this country—the Guerrilla warfare along the border of Missouri.

It was therefore without any twinges of conscience that they heard the proposition of the revengeful Quantrell, to capture and sack the city of Lawrence and massacre its male inhabitants. They were in the transforming stage, the full grown desperadoes were just coming along the steps of time from the closet of the future.

It was a night in August—the 16th—1863, when the commander of the fiercest band of Guerrillas that ever marauded in the State of Missouri, gave the order, "Saddle up, men!" in his camp on the Blackwater, and unfurling that ominous black banner with the single relief of the word "Quantrell" in white, the bush-warriors rode west toward the Kansas border, intent upon a mission which could neither succeed nor suffer repulse without bringing sorrow to many hearts. On the way three peaceable citizens beyond the Aubrey, were pressed into service as guides to the bloody band. They forced these to lead them until they had reached a part of the country where their knowledge extended no further, and when they came to a grove of timber on the margin of a stream, the three poor inoffensive men were remorsely shot, Frank James being one of the executioners. They had set out to kill all Kansas men.

After Lawrence.

On the morning of the 21st, it was as clear and bright a summer morning as ever gladdened the earth. Quantrell's band was in full view of the ill-fated city. There was a charge, women's faces blanched, and shrieks rent the air. Volley after volley broke the stillness of the morning. The people saw the sombre black flag, and knew that the Guerrillas were upon them. On they came, a resistless tide. Men sank down without a groan. The very streets ran red in human blood. Women and children, coming before the fatal revolver bullets which streamed along the street, met their fate as they fled for the shelter of homes that were destined for the flames to feed upon. In this pandemonium of war-fiends, Frank and Jesse James were conspicuous actors. Here, there, everywhere, when opportunity offered, men either armed or unarmed and defenseless were made victims of their skill as pistol shooters, and they felt no more regret than if they had been acting the part of honorable soldiers and chevaliers. The torch was applied, and the terrors of billowy flames were added to the horrors of the scene. How many houses they burned, and how many lives they destroyed that day, they themselves do not know; of the first there were several, of the second there were many.

They returned with Quantrell to Missouri. They had learned well. The lads who are claimed by their friends to have been gentle as cooing doves in the home nest had been singularly transformed into merciless eagles, or vindictive kites, rather. They had proved that human rights and human lives had little to call for their regard, and so the first stage of a notorious career had been attained by these brothers ere yet they had reached their majority.