my hope to avenge my father's murder,
combined in a Christmas adventure which has been misrepresented by other
writers.

Todd said he knew some of the band who had killed father were in Kansas
City, and Christmas day six of us went in to look them up.

Leaving Zach Traber with our horses just beyond the outposts, the rest of
us hunted them until it must have been nearly midnight. We were in a
saloon on Main street. I had called for a cigar, and glancing around, saw
that we had been recognized by a trooper who had been playing cards. He
reached for his pistol, but he never pulled it.

I do not know how many were killed that night. They chased us well out of
town and there was a fight at the picket post on the Independence road.

Col. Penick, in command at Independence, hearing of the Kansas City
adventure, put a price of $1,000 on my head and other figures on those of
my comrades.

It was to get this blood money that six weeks later, Feb. 9, the militia
drove my mother out of her house and made her burn it before their eyes.

I was a hunted man.

11. BETRAYED

The day after they burned my mother out of her home they made another
trial for the $1,000 reward, and this time they had a better prospect of
success, for they had with them the traitor, McDowell, whom I had carried
out on my horse in the fight at New Santa Fe a few weeks before. McDowell
said he wanted to go home to see his wife and assure her he was all right,
but he did not go near her. Instead he hurried into Independence and that
evening the militia came out, eighty strong, to take us prisoners. Even
they did not trust McDowell, for he, closely guarded, was kept in front.

Forty of them had come within twenty yards of us on the south when my
horse warned me, and I called out: "Is that you Todd?"

"Don't mind us; we're friends," came the answer, but I saw they were not,
and the lieutenant in command fell at the first fire. The boys swarmed
out of the dug-outs, and the fighting was hot.

Retreat to the north was cut off by the other forty and they had us
between them. We made for the west, firing as we went, and the soldiers
fell right and left. I stayed by Joe Hardin till they dropped him in his
tracks, and fought fifteen of the militia while Otho Hinton stopped to get
his heavy boots off. Tom Talley, too, had one boot off and one foot stuck
in the leg of the other. He could not run and he had no knife to cut the
leather. I y