"Turn 'round and go home before you're hurt. Come a rod nearer and we'll shoot! Take aim, boys!" Throwing their Winchesters to their shoulders, Cole, John and Jim waited. This determination to resist any attempt to capture them abashed the posse and they halted to hold a conference. "Once more, we call upon you to surrender," yelled the spokesman at its conclusion. Realizing that men who temporized when they outnumbered them three to one would make no desperate attempt to kill them, Jesse exclaimed to his men: "Give them a volley just over their heads." Instantly the rifles cracked. "Charge!" thundered the great bandit. Ducking as the bullets whistled above them, the pursuers paused only till they beheld the yelling robbers dashing toward them, then turned and fled incontinently. "That'll do, boys!" laughed Jesse. "There's no use playing with fire. While they're recovering their nerve, we'll have the opportunity to get into the woods." And once more whirling their ponies, the outlaws rode from Ste. Genevieve. Without let or hindrance, they reached a dense copse where they divided the booty and discussed plans for hiding till the first heat of the chase should die out. Jesse and Cole were for crossing the Mississippi and bearing to the south, seeking cover in the mountains of Kentucky or Tennessee. John and Jim, however, argued that there would be less danger in recrossing the state and going back to where they started from. Finally it was agreed that they should separate, the bandit-chieftain and his chum going where they thought best and the others announcing their determination to return to the home of their uncle at Chalk Level, all to meet at the rendezvous at Sni Mills in five weeks. But as they shook hands at parting, little did they think that one of them would not be alive to keep the appointment! John's decision was his death-knell! When Captain Lull arrived at Monegaw Springs, from Chicago, to take charge of the demoralized forces of the Pinkertons after their abortive attempt to trap Jesse at Brett's camp, he spent only time enough at the health resort to learn the details and transferred his base of operations to Osceola. Realizing that his actions would be hampered should it be known that he was a detective, Lull took the name of Allen and gave it out that he was acting as a buyer for a cattleman who was then in St. Louis. This city was selected because the man-hunter had a clever friend, named Wright, whom he wished to have assist him in running the bandits to cover. The way thus paved for Wright's coming and their subsequent trips through the surrounding country, Lull, or Allen, sent a code despatch summoning the amateur sleuth.