to all alike of both parties for all acts done or charged to have been
done during the war; therefore, be it"

"_Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring
therein,_ That the Governor of the state be, and he is hereby requested to
issue his proclamation notifying the said Jesse W. James, Frank James,
Coleman Younger, and James Younger and others, that full and complete
amnesty and pardon will be granted them for all acts charged or committed
by them during the late civil war, and inviting them peacefully to return
to their respective homes in this state and there quietly to remain,
submitting themselves to such proceedings as may be instituted against
them by the courts for all offenses charged to have been committed since
said war, promising and guaranteeing to each of them full protection and a
fair trial therein, and that full protection shall be given them from the
time of their entrance into the state and his notice thereof under said
proclamation and invitation."

It was approved by Attorney-General Hockaday, favorably reported by a
majority of the committee on criminal jurisprudence, but while it was
pending Farmer Askew, who had piloted the detectives in their raid on the
Samuels residence, was called to his door at night and shot and killed by
unknown parties.

The bill was beaten, Democrats and Confederate soldiers voting against it.

For myself, the only charge against me was the unwarranted one of the
killing of young Judy during the war, but the failure of the bill left us
still under the ban of outlawry.

23. BELLE STARR

One of the richest mines for the romancers who have pretended to write the
story of my life was the fertile imagination of Belle Starr, who is now
dead, peace to her ashes.

These fairy tales have told how the "Cherokee maiden fell in love with the
dashing captain." As a matter of fact, Belle Starr was not a Cherokee.
Her father was John Shirley, who during the war had a hotel at Carthage,
Mo. In the spring of 1864, while I was in Texas, I visited her father,
who had a farm near Syene, in Dallas county. Belle Shirley was then 14,
and there were two or three brothers smaller.

The next time I saw Belle Shirley was in 1868, in Bates county, Mo. She
was then the wife of Jim Reed, who had been in my company during the war,
and she was at the home of his mother. This was about three months before
the birth of her eldest child, Pearl Reed, afterward