Who were the robbers? This question was inferentially answered sometime afterward, when, in a conflict with a Texas official, Jim Reed, a member of the gang, was mortally wounded, and confessed that he was one of the party, and that his associates were men from Missouri, noted as "brave boys." Who were so noted on the 7th day of April, 1874, at which time the stage robbery took place, but Frank and Jesse James, and the Younger Brothers? It is now the settled conviction of all who are acquainted with the facts, that the James Boys were there and "bossed the job." 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."