toward Jesse became more bitter in the latter part of that
year, when after the gate robbery at the Kansas City fair, he wrote a
letter to the Times of that city declaring that he and I had been accused
of the robbery, but that he could prove an alibi. So far as I know that
is the first time my name was ever mentioned in connection with the Kansas
City robbery.

In 1874, when Detective Whicher was killed on a trip to arrest Frank and
Jesse James, I was angered to think that Jesse and his friends had brought
Whicher from Kearney to the south side of the river, which I then believed
was done to throw suspicion on the boys in Jackson county, of whom,
perhaps, I would be most likely to get the credit. I have since learned,
however, from the men who did kill Whicher, that Jesse did not kill him,
but had believed his story and had been inclined to welcome him as a
fellow wanderer. Whicher declared that he had murdered his wife and
children in the East and he was seeking a refuge from the officers of the
law. But Jesse's comrades were skeptical, and when they found on Whicher
a pistol bearing Pinkerton's mark, they started with him for Kansas City
intending to leave him dead in the street there. Shortly after they
crossed to the Independence side of the river, the sound of a wagon on the
frozen ground impelled them to finish the job where they were, as it was
almost daybreak and they did not want to be seen with their captive.

But Jesse and I were not on friendly terms at any time after the Shepherd
affair, and never were associated in any enterprises.

32. LOST--TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

When the iron doors shut behind us at the Stillwater prison I submitted to
the prison discipline with the same unquestioning obedience that I had
exacted during my military service, and Jim and Bob, I think, did the
same.

For ten years and a half after our arrival, Warden Reed remained. The
first three years there was a popular idea that such desperate men as the
Youngers would not stay long behind prison walls, and that especial
watchfulness must be exercised in our case. Accordingly the three of us
were put at work making buckets and tubs, with Ben Cayou over us as a
special guard, when in our dreams we had been traveling to South America
on Ben Butler's money.

Then we were put in the thresher factory. I made the sieves, while Jim
sewed the belts, and Bob made the straw-carriers and elevators.

The latter part of the Re