The Story of Cole Younger – 25 Eluding the Police

image of Bob YoungerBob and I had a close call with the St. Louis police in the fall of that year. The bank at Huntington, West Virginia, was robbed the first of September that year, and in the chase of the robbers Thompson McDaniels, who had fought with us in the war, was shot and fatally hurt. In his delirium he called for “Bud,” and many, among whom was Detective Ely of Louisville, thought that he meant me, I having been known familiarly throughout the war as “Bud” Younger. This fact has made careless writers connect Brother Bob with some of my exploits, and in his case it served to throw suspicion on me when in fact it was probably “Bud” or Bill McDaniels, Thompson’s brother, about whom he was raving. Bill was killed shortly before, escaping from arrest for complicity in the Muncie train robbery.

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The Story of Cole Younger – 24 “Captain Dykes”

gunbeltThe winter that the amnesty bill was before the Missouri legislature I spent in Florida, with the exception of a short trip to Cuba. I was the greater part of the time at Lake City. I sent Bob to school at William and Mary college, but the same proud spirit that caused him to leave Dallas in 1872 impelled him to leave college when his fellow students began to connect his uncommon name with that of the notorious Missouri outlaw, Cole Younger. He rejoined me in Florida. I was “Mr. Dykes,” a sojourner from the north, and while I carried a pair of pistols in my belt to guard against the appearance of any of Judy’s ilk, the people of Lake City never knew it until one day when the village was threatened with a race riot.

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