CHAPTER XXX.

FARMER ASKEW'S FATE.

During the time General Jone's amnesty measure was pending in the Legislature of Missouri, Jesse and Frank James remained very quiet. They even opened up communication with Governor Charles H. Hardin and Attorney-General John A. Hockaday, through Sheriff Groome, of Clay county. From all the evidence at present available, we are forced to believe that at this time Jesse and Frank James were sincerely anxious that the measure should be adopted, and were in earnest in the desire to conclude a peace with society with which they had been at war for ten long years.

For a time their vengeance slumbered. It was known to them that certain neighbors of theirs in Clay county had taken an active interest in the efforts which had been put forth to accomplish their arrest, and every one expected that a bloody retaliation would follow. Their conduct had made for them many enemies in the community of which their father had been an honored member. Some of these were open and outspoken in denunciation of their course, while others were restrained in expressions of hostility by their knowledge of the desperate and vengeful character of the men.

But the Jameses knew when to restrain themselves, and carefully abstained from any act that might lose to them the effect of the slight revulsion in public opinion in their favor caused by the tragic results of the night raid. But they had marked their men--vengeance was only delayed. Possibly, if General Jone's amnesty measure had succeeded, they would have withheld the hand of destruction, and their intended victims, instead of mouldering in gory graves, might to-day be alive. It is impossible to even conjecture what might have been the effect on the future life of the daring desperado, Jesse James. He might have turned away from the evil way which he had travelled so long, and atoned by an upright life for all the past. But it was not to be. For to them--

"The die now cast, their station known, Fond expectation past; The thorns which former days had sown, To crops of late repentance grown, Through which they toil'd at last; While every care's a driving harm, That helped to bear them down; Which faded smiles no more could charm, But every tear a winter storm, And every look a frown."

They were outlaws still. Hunted as enemies of their kind, they turned viciously to avenge what they, no doubt, earnestly believed their wrongs.

Among those who had expressed in strong terms his disapproval of the conduct of the James Boys, was Mr. Daniel H. Askew, a well-to-do farmer, and somewhat prominent citizen of Clay county, whose farm and residence was near the home of the Jameses. The outspoken opinion of Mr. Askew had given great offense to the Jameses and their friends, and when the night raid was made in January they at once suspected that Askew had been partly instrumental in bringing it about. This belief was strengthened by some of the scouts in the interest of the Jameses finding a couple of blankets, and evidences of the late presence of men among Mr. Askew's haystacks. To still further confirm them in the belief that Askew assisted the detectives in the attack on the Samuels house, a young man known as Jack Ladd, who had been in Askew's employ as a farmer, departed from the country on the night of the assault.

It is but justice to the memory of Mr. Askew, to state in this place that he frequently and earnestly disclaimed having any knowledge whatever of the movements of the detectives in the employ of Mr. Pinkerton. But his denials had no weight with the vengeful Jameses. They and their friends continued to believe that the attacking party were sheltered and led by farmer Daniel H. Askew, and they resolved to execute dire vengeance upon him.

On the night of April 12th, 1875, Mr. Askew went with a bucket to a spring some distance from his residence, and returned to the house with the bucket filled with water. He had sat the bucket on a bench and was standing on his back porch, not having yet entered the house after returning from the spring. Just in the rear of the house, and within ten paces of the edge of the porch on which Mr. Askew was standing, there was a heap of firewood reaching perhaps to the height of five or six feet. Behind this wood-heap the assassins found a convenient hiding place. Whoever they may have been, they had ridden to the rear of a field, hitched their horses, and walked through the field to their place of concealment.

Suddenly the report of a pistol, followed instantaneously by the report of two shots, rang out on the night air, and Mr. Askew fell upon the floor of the porch and immediately expired. Some members of the family, in a great state of alarm, rushed out to his assistance, but found him already dead. Three shots, evidently fired from heavy revolvers, had taken effect in the head of the poor farmer, and one had crashed through his brain.

The murderers had run back across the field, mounted their horses and departed before the grief-stricken and astonished family could make any movements toward discovering their identity.

That night at a late hour some men on horseback rode by the house of Mr. Henry Sears, and summoned him to the door. He saw three men in the road. One of them called to him and said, "We have killed Dan Askew to-night, and if anyone wants to know who did it, say detectives."

Having thus delivered their terrible message, the men rode away in the dark. And the friends and neighbors gathered to the Askew farm-house to console his bereaved and stricken family, and the coroner came next day, "due inquisition to make into the causes which led to Daniel H. Askew's death." But from that day to this no one knows to a certainty who took the farmer's life. The general belief at the time was, that he had fallen a victim to the vengeance of the James Boys. The years that have elapsed have only served to strengthen that belief and deepen the convictions of those who believed that Askew died at the hands of the vengeful outlaws. Who can tell? Only Him who knoweth all things, and the assassins, if still alive, hold the dreadful secret.