No man can tell what my feelings were, when at last I found myself pushing out into the world of crime, hitherto unknown to me, unless he were placed identically where I was. There were moments when I was at the point of abandoning the short road of contemplated crime, which would soon lead me into the absolutely broad road of crime committed. In such moments as these, retrospection would bring up before me the green hills of Vermont, the far-away old homestead I loved so well, the dear old folks at home; the happy days in Stoneham, with its prosperous years, when I could walk forth in God’s free air and be respected and honored by those who knew me, and no hand was raised against me. All these bright remembrances would come up to me, with powerful influences for good; but when the real present crowded in, and crushed back those dreamlike days, I had to ask where I could go, if I cut away from the men with whom I had cast my lot. Nowhere among those I had known; for was I not a man with a price on my head? I could not return to the Vermont hills and the old place and dwell openly with my dear old folks, nor even in secret be near them; for not then would I be safe from the clutches of the law. Nor could I wend my way back to the later home of my prosperity; for there the same hand, the same hard injustice of the law, would close in on me. No! I was an outlaw, not daring to clasp hands with any one save those of the outlawed men with whom I was now associated. One by one the influences for good were counted and laid away. What could I do--I, an innocent man with the scales of justice weighing against me. And one by one I buried the thoughts of those things, which were no longer to be my stepping-stones along life’s journey, as far as I could tell, and passed on to what the unsolved future held in reserve for me. Come what might, I would accept the gauntlet thrown down to me by a cruel fate. I put up at the Scott House in Pittsburg. When Big Bill, Eddie Hughes, and Tall Jim concluded to spread out and canvass the surrounding country, they assigned me to look over a small bank in Allegheny City, near by. We were to meet again in five days, at my hotel. I felt that a considerable responsibility had been placed on my shoulders for one so young in the business, therefore I determined to try my best and disprove, if the chance came my way, what Jack Utley had said of me. Somewhat to my disappointment, the bank I inspected proved to be an impracticable undertaking, so the experienced ones said on their return, and I had to wait for another opportunity to show what sort of an inspector of lootable banks I was. When all the reports were in, that of Tall Jim’s seemed to be the most alluring, so it was voted to make a strike at his bank, which was in Wellsburg, a small town in Brooks County, West Virginia, several miles below Steubenville, on the left bank of the Ohio River.