CHAPTER XXVII.

A NIGHT RAID OF DETECTIVES.

After Whicher's melancholy fate, Allan Pinkerton had motives aside from those of gain for pursuing to the death the celebrated border bandits, Frank and Jesse James. In one year, three of the most courageous and trusted men in the employ of the distinguished detective had been sent out after the Missouri outlaws, and were carried back cold in death, after conflicts with the desperadoes. Whicher and Lull and Daniels were asleep in gory beds. And yet Frank and Jesse James, and their followers and allies, were free as the winds that blow, to come and go as interest or caprice might dictate to them. While this condition of affairs continued, Pinkerton must have felt that his reputation as a skillful entrapper of criminals suffered.

About the first of the year 1875, the great detective commenced a campaign against the renowned brigands which was meant to be finally effective. The most elaborate and careful preparations were made. Nothing was left undone which could in any way contribute to the success of the undertaking. The utmost secrecy was observed in every movement.

Several circumstances seemed to favor the detectives. Many of the most respectable citizens of Clay county had grown weary of the presence in their midst of persons of the evil reputation of the Jameses, and entered with alacrity and zeal into the scheme inaugurated for the capture of the Boys. Among those of the citizens most prominent in the movement which had for its design the annihilation of the band of which Jesse James was supposed to be the chief leader, were several of the old neighbors and acquaintances of the James and Samuels families.

With these citizens, Mr. William Pinkerton, who had gone from Chicago to Kansas City, to direct the movements of the detective forces, opened communication. A system of cipher signals was adopted, and communications constantly passed between the different persons engaged in the undertaking. The citizens in the neighborhood of Kearney were watchful, and keenly observed every movement in the vicinity of the residence of Dr. Samuels, and daily transmitted the results to their chief, who had established temporary headquarters at Kansas City.

It was known to some of the immediate neighbors of Dr. Samuels that Frank and Jesse James were at home. They had been seen occasionally at the little railway station of Kearney, which is three miles distant from the residence which had been, and was still claimed, as the home of the outlaws. Near neighbors, in casually passing, had seen them about the barnyards. All these things had been faithfully reported to the chief detective at Kansas City.

At length the opportune time for striking a decisive blow was deemed to have arrived. Dispatches in cipher were sent to Chicago for reinforcements, and specific orders touching their movements after their arrival near the objective point, were given. The Kansas City division of the forces was held in readiness to co-operate with the force from the East. The citizens of Clay county, who had so zealously aided the detectives, received final instructions as to the part they were to take in the grand _coup_, by which their county was to be forever relieved of the presence of the dangerous outlaws.

Extraordinary precautions had been taken to maintain a profound secrecy as to the movements and purposes of the detectives. No strange men had been seen loitering about Kearney. Everything which could possibly be done to allay suspicion on the part of the outlaws had been done. But the Jameses had friends everywhere in Western Missouri--keen, shrewd, vigilant men, who noted everything, and whose suspicions were aroused by the slightest circumstance. The very quiet which prevailed was ominous of approaching danger. Somehow, too, they had learned of the sending and receiving of cipher messages by a Clay county man, at Liberty. This made them doubly watchful.

The extensive preparations which had been made, and the necessity imposed upon them of waiting for a suitable opportunity to strike, had occupied much time, and it was not until the night of the 25th of January, that the detectives made the final attack.

Jesse and Frank had been seen near the Samuels place that very evening, and no doubt was entertained that they were at home.

The detective forces destined for the attack on what was facetiously termed "Castle James," were divided into small squads, and began to arrive in Clay county on the afternoon of the 24th, from the East. Coming after night, they were met by citizens of Clay county and conducted to places of shelter in the most quiet and secret manner. After nightfall on the evening of the 25th, a special train came up by Kearney, and on it came another detachment from Kansas City. These were met by citizens well acquainted, and conducted to the place of rendezvous.

Secretly as these movements had been conducted, the ever-vigilant Jesse had his suspicions aroused by some trivial circumstance, which would have escaped the attention of almost any other man. Convinced that some formidable movement was going on, designed to consummate his destruction, Jesse James, his brother, and another member of the band rode away from the Samuels house after nightfall that very evening, and at the hour when the detectives arrived in the vicinity of the place where they expected to capture them, the Jameses were riding in the cold, well on their way to the house of a friend, miles away.

The detectives had no intimation that their intended victims had taken the alarm and departed from the place. They were assured that the outlaws had been seen in the vicinity of their home at a late hour in the afternoon, and it was believed that they were there still.

The night was cold and dark. It was late--perhaps near midnight, when the detective force arrived at the farm-house. There were nine men selected from Pinkerton's force because of their shrewdness and courage, and several citizens of the vicinity who, like the detectives, were fully armed. The assailing forces took up their stations completely surrounding the house. Some balls of tow thoroughly saturated with kerosene oil and turpentine had been prepared, and the detectives carried with them some formidable hand-grenades to be used in the assault. Two of the assailants approached a window at the rear of the house. The slight noise made in opening the shutters and raising the sash aroused a negro woman, an old family servant, who was sleeping in the apartment. She at once set up a shout of alarm which speedily brought to the room Mrs. Samuels, her husband, and several members of the family, some of them young children.

Just then a lighted ball of tow and oil was thrown into the room. The place was instantly brilliantly illuminated. The inmates of course, having just been aroused from slumber, were greatly agitated at this unexpected assault. The situation was truly appalling. Another lighted ball was hurled into the room. The younger members of the family cried out piteously as they fled aghast from the lurid flames that shot toward the ceiling. Mrs. Samuels quickly recovered her presence of mind, and began to give directions and personally to exert herself in the work of subduing the flames. She was permitted only a moment to engage in this employment. There was a sudden crash as a great iron ball struck the floor, followed in an instant by a terrific explosion. Instantly the room was filled by a dense cloud of smoke, through which the white flames of the fireballs gleamed with a lurid red hue as if tinged with blood. There was a wail of agony from within that pandemonium of midnight horrors which might well have called emotion to a heart of stone. The piteous moans of childhood in dying throes, were mingled with the deeper groans of suffering age, and the shriller cries of terrified youth. The work of the assailants in that particular line of attack was complete. And yet the noted outlaws did not appear. It was at once concluded that they were not present or they would have shown themselves under such circumstances. The attacking force did not wait to ascertain the result of the explosion of their terrible missile. They realized only that the game they sought had escaped them, and they retired from the place without caring to learn anything more about the consequences of their effort. They had failed, and that was all they felt interested in ascertaining.

When the smoke had cleared away and the fires which had been kindled about the house were extinguished, the extent of the execution done by the explosion was fully revealed. The spectacle presented was awful beyond any power of our pen to describe. There, lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, poured out from his own young veins, was the mangled form of an eight-year old son of Mrs. Samuels, in the very throes of death; Mrs. Samuels' right arm hung helpless by her side, having been almost completely torn off above the elbow. Dr. Samuels was cut and bruised; the aged colored woman was wounded in several places; in fact, every member of the household was more or less injured. Blood was everywhere. Death was in the room; and pain and grief combined smote upon every soul in that stricken home.

Whatever the crimes of the boys of ill-favored reputation, they afforded no justification for this terrible assault in which innocent childhood was made the victim for the deeds of others. And the people of the state, without any exceptions, condemned the deed as wholly unjustifiable. The detectives made haste to leave the country, and the citizens who had assisted them returned to their homes and kept counsel with themselves.

The dead boy was taken away, and in his little grave under the snow they left him lying, the sinless victim of sin, over whose untimely fate many hearts have swelled with emotions too big for utterance.