in Mississippi at a
dance, and a young lady asked to be introduced to me.

Her name was White, and we had not talked long before she said:

"Mother says you've made a man of father."

Captain White had crossed the river, quit his drinking associates, but I
have never seen him since the day we shot it out.

This duel gave Cole Younger a reputation in that section which was of
value to a poor preacher's widow near Bayou Macon some time later.

There was to be a sale of the property and effects of the Widow Hurley. I
attended the sale, hitched my horse in the barn lot and was walking across
the garden at the back of the house toward an open space, where the crowd
was gathered waiting for the auctioneer to open the sale. As I walked I
came upon Mrs. Hurley, crying. "Good morning, Mrs. Hurley," I said, "I am
sorry to see you in tears; what is the trouble?"

She explained that her husband had mortgaged the property and stock before
his death and she had not been able to lift it, and they were about to be
taken away from her. I asked her what the amount of the indebtedness was,
and she told me $80. I took the money out of my pocket and gave it to
her, and told her to bid it in when the time came, and I gave her the
signal.

Asbury Humphreys, who was the auctioneer, knew me from the story of the
duel, and before he began I told him he would have to put the property all
up at once.

Some of the fellows from over on the river wanted the cows and hogs put up
separately, so they could pick out what they wanted, and Asbury declared
he was afraid to change the plan for the sale. They would not let him
live there if he did.

"Well, Asbury," I said, "I'm going to be down beside the wagon where I can
see you and you can see me, and when I give you the sign you knock the
property down or I'll have use for this pistol."

I had not had time to coach Mrs. Hurley, so she made it somewhat
embarrassing for Asbury. There was kicking enough when he announced that
he had decided to put all the goods up in a lump, but he looked down where
I was learning against the wheel of his wagon and stood pat.

When he called for bids Mrs. Hurley bid her whole $80. I had not taken
the precaution to tell her to start it lower, and there were now only two
ways out of it, either to give her more money or have it knocked down to
her right there.

I decided that the shortest way out of it was to have Asbury knock it down
to her then and there