or the president of a rural bank than like a bandit. In
his manner there is a strong note of the showman. It
is not at all objectionable, but it is there, in the same
way that it is there in Buffalo Bill. Frank James is an
interesting figure; on meeting him you see, at once, that
he knows he is an interesting figure and that he trades
upon the fact. He is clearly an intelligent man, but
he has been looked at and listened to for so many years,
as a kind of curiosity, that he has the air of going
through his tricks for one--of getting off a line of prac-
tised patter. It is pretty good patter, as patter goes,
inclining to quotation, epigram, and homely philosophy,
delivered in an assured "platform manner."

It may be well here to remind the reader of the history
of the James Gang.

The father and mother of the "boys" came from Ken-
tucky to Missouri. The father was a Baptist minister
and a slaveholder. He died before the war, and his
widow married a man named Samuels, by whom she
had several children.

From the year 1856 Missouri, which was a slave
state, warred with Kansas, which was a free state,
and there was much barbarity along the border.
The "Jayhawkers," or Kansas guerrillas, would make
forays into Missouri, stealing cattle, burning houses,
and committing all manner of depredations; and lawless
gangs of Missourians would retaliate, in kind, on Kan-
sas. Among the most appalling cutthroats on the Mis-
souri side was a man named Quantrell, head of the

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