CHAPTER XX.

THE CASH BOX OF THE FAIR.

Fair time! Kansas City was gay with flags and streamers and banners. It was a holiday season. The streets were thronged and trains from Leavenworth and Sedalia, and St. Joseph and Moberly, and Lawrence and Clinton and regions further removed from Kansas City, brought crowds of men, women and children to see the show. It was a lovely October day. The temperature was mild, and the sun shone through an atmosphere which tinged his rays with gold.

All day the great crowd surged and circled about the grounds and through the textile hall, and the art gallery, and the agricultural exhibition, and among the fat kine and the lazy swine, the sheep and the horses, and the poultry coops. It was a good day, so the "management" thought, one of the very best they had ever had. Shrewd mental arithmeticians declared there was not a soul less than twenty thousand visitors present that day, and an incident of some importance has placed it forever out of the power of any one to disprove the statement of the mental arithmetician. The management, too, from that day to this, have been unable to count the gate money. Why not we now proceed to tell.

The people visiting the fair were deeply interested in "the speed and bottom" of sundry "blooded horses" which were making time around the race track. The sun was getting low in the west. It was the last "ring" to be exhibited that day. Of course no one would think of paying their entrance fee and go away without seeing the races.

While the great multitude was so engaged, there was a commotion near the entrance gate. The level beams of the declining sun cast gigantic shadows over the ground. A sudden clattering of horses, hoofs on the beaten road aroused the guardians at the gate. What could it mean? The noise came nearer. The guardians looked up. A strange sight met their gaze. A band of well mounted, well armed, strange, weird looking men, seven in number, dashed up to the gate. Among some of the spectators it was supposed that these singularly brigandish looking men, were simply actors, that they had been employed by the "management" for the entertainment of the visitors to the fair--that it was, in short, an irruption of the "Cowbellions," or some such mystic order of men. Even the treasurers in their "cuddy boxes" did not comprehend the character of the movement.

But they were not kept in doubt long. Riding directly to the receiver of money, who, like Matthew, of saintly memory, was sitting at the receipt of customs, two of them sprang to the ground, drew their pistols, and rushed up to the cashier. With a fearful threat they commanded him to remain quiet, and designate the money box. What could he do? Instantly the other robber seized the cash-box. The men who still remained mounted covered the retreat of the two who did the seizing. They remounted, fired a volley as a warning, and dashed away with the receipts of the day, probably $8,000 or $9,000.

There were twenty thousand people, they said, on the ground. And yet in the sight of all these the brigands had done this thing, and were galloping away unmolested. There were hundreds who saw them, and if any old Guerrilla comrade was one of them, and recognized Frank and Jesse James, and Cole and Bob Younger, they said nothing about it.

As soon as the "management" of the fair and the police authorities, and sheriffs, and constables, and marshals had time to think and consider the necessity for energetic measures in efforts to capture the brigands, there was mounting in hot haste of police officers, marshals and other enforcers of the law, and pursuit was commenced with great vigor. But the pursuers had little better success than those who went after young Lord Lochinvar when he eloped with the bride of Netherby Hall, whom "they never did see." The pursuers of the robbers of the gate did hear of a man who was riding along a country road in Clay county who looked as if he might have been a robber, but the robbers they never did see.

The fact of the matter is, the robbers rode away about five miles over the hills, until they came to a piece of wild forest country, rode into the woods; came to a sequestered glade; struck a light; emptied the cash out of the box; counted and divided the spoils; remounted their horses, and favored by the darkness of the night, and their thorough knowledge of the country, they went their way, every man choosing his own route. Jesse and Frank James made a visit to the east part of Jackson county to see some friends, and Cole and Bob Younger, passing down to the neighborhood of Monegaw Springs, to visit Mr. Theodoric Snuffer and others of their friends and relatives.

A great many people did not believe that the James Boys and Younger Brothers had anything to do with this robbery, or had ever had anything to do with any robbery at that time. But there is now no longer a doubt that the Boys enjoyed the good in this life which the receipts at the fair ground gate could procure for them.

An incident in connection with the robbery at the fair ground gate is of sufficient interest to bear reproduction here. As we have before related, the robbery took place while the attention of the people was deeply engrossed in the horse races then in progress on the track. That day Mr. Ford, a well known journalist of Kansas City, was acting treasurer at "the pool stand." There was a sum of money in the box amounting to between $8,000 and $9,000. Mr. Ford was seated upon the box when a couple of strangers came along. One of them approached the treasurer, and entered into a conversation about as follows: The stranger remarked,

"You must have considerable money in there?"

"Well, yes," responded Mr. Ford. "There is a considerable amount of cash in here."

"Suppose the James Boys should come and demand it; what would you do?" asked the stranger.

"Well, they would have to fight for it," replied Mr. Ford. "They might kill me, but somebody would have to be killed before they could get this box away, that is certain."

"You would fight for it, eh?" responded the stranger.

"That I would," said Mr. Ford.

"If you knew it was the James Boys who made the demand?" asked the stranger.

"Certainly I would," replied Mr. Ford.

The stranger gazed sharply at the treasurer of "the pool stand" for an instant, and, turning about, walked away without further remark.

Mr. Ford had met Frank James before, on some occasion, and was convinced that the person who addressed him was no other than Frank James. He recognized him beyond a doubt before he had passed out of sight.

That evening the robbery was consummated. Other respectable parties saw Frank and Jesse James that day about Kansas City, but for a time they were able to beguile the public into the belief that they were not present on that occasion. But time has furnished sufficient evidence to connect them with that daring enterprise.