The resources of the James family had been impaired, absorbed, wasted, in the crucial time of strife. But they were not permitted to make a peaceful effort to build up and restore wasted fortunes. Harassed on every hand, these boys, who were naturally of a strong temperament, and perhaps of revengeful natures, were yet mere boys who had learned to be self-reliant; impatient of restraint, bold in action, and acquainted with the art of slaughter, turned upon their hunters and revealed the desperate character of the game they pursued. They were not left in peace after the light of peace blessed the land and made glad other hearts; and they would have been more than human not to have undertaken their own protection under such circumstances. If others attempted to murder them, they did not hesitate to slay. So their lives have become lurid with slaughter. It must be remembered that we are not attempting to justify such a line of conduct; but there are many things in connection with human affairs that cannot be defended. We look at things as they are, and not as they ought to be. Doubtless, it will be admitted on all hands that the James boys ought not to have led such a wild career of outlawry; that they ought not to have entered upon such a course of action; and finally it will be urged that it would have been far better for them, and everything and everybody connected with them, to have quietly yielded to the inevitable, and voluntarily exiled themselves forever from the scenes of childhood and all the dear associations of their tenderer and more hopeful youth. Certainly, it would have been best for them. But such a course would have been contrary to the world's experience of human nature. So when vigilance committees were hanging their comrades who had been with them by the camp fires in the deep forests, and in many a bloody foray; and when armed men, fours and sixes, hunted for them; when repose was banished from their home, and the phantom shadow of death peered out at them from every forest thicket, and from the sombre shades of the silent night, these boys rose up in rebellion against that society which refused to own them, and that order which organized the cohorts of vengeance. Jesse W. and Frank James, the terrible Guerrillas of the war-time, were henceforth to "become enemies of every man," or at least outlaws from society, and free companions of the highways. It might have been different with them. But the long, lingering fires of hate burned after the lurid days of slaughter, and they were not the persons to refuse the gauntlet when thrown at their feet. Never too good by nature, circumstances have made them desperate, and hence, after concluding their bloody Guerrilla record, we proceed with their history as outlaws and highwaymen of the most remarkable character of any known in the annals of history. CHAPTER XV. THE GALLATIN BANK TRAGEDY.