The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-08-18

Mot long ago I met up with young Jesse James," said man, the son of an army officer who spent his youth at western army posts. Young Jesse re- gently came out at the top of his law class in Kansas City.
 He is bright, but singularly taciturn chap-like his dad before him in that re- spect. He looks a good deal like his fla ther, barring the elder Jesse's beard, and this Is boost for him, for the outlaw was a handsome mana man who, though he came of stock rather below middling, had the carved features and many other points of the thoroughbred, including remarkably small hands and feet.
 q had two good looks at Jesse James, the outlaw-once when he was living and the other when he was dead. And, with my younger brother l was once at the age of eight the terrified and shrlelSing vic- tim of a famous member of the James gang, Wood Hite.
 That little incident was an odd af fair. It was due to that desperado's in- nate cruelty and his hankering to infict torture upon human creatures-for Hite was the most reckless and mercless devil of the James gang, I've often heard 1t said-that my brother and became pretty good swimmers.
 My brother was seven and l was only a little bit more than eight, and we used to sneak away from home to go swim z. ing in the wicked Missouri river. which flows past Fort Leavenworth. When we got town to our regular wallowing spot at the riverside one hot afternoon we found a huge red-haired and red-bearded fellow sitting In the shade of a tree close to the verge, flaming himself with his sombrero.
 "He spoke to us in an agreeable way and we didn't mind him. We stripped to fool around in the shallow water. The red bearded man watched us for a while and then he climbed into an old leaky skiff that was pulled up on the river bank
 "'Get in, young 'uns,' he said to us pleasantly-he had an agreeable speaking voice when he chose to make 1t so, and we'll have a little ride
 Throw Them Overheard.
 "We climbed Into the stern sheets of the skiff. a pair of pleased naked youngsters. Without saying ward the red-bearded man roWed the skiR out to the middle of the Big Muddy, which Is a mile wide at Fort Leavenworth, and the current was as swift as a millrace out there, and filled with sucking eddies. When he pulled the boat to midstream he dropped the oars, rose. calmly stepped to where we sat hud- dled in the stern sheets, picked us up one by one, and deliberately tossed us over the side of the ski ffinto the arrowy river.
 "Did we swim? Well, you'll observe that I am here, for one, to show that we swan all right. We had to swim, There wasn't anything to 1t.
 q don't suppose Hite really meant to drown us. All ne wanted to do was to torture us. We spluttered and hollowed and shrieked, but we swan. As we passed down with the current he picked up the oars and followed us in the skiff.
 I've got hold of the skiH and he helped us in. He allowed us to breathe for bit and then he threw us overheard again. He repeated this half a dozen times or more.
 We whimpered and begged, but he paid no attention to that. He'd just pick us up and chuck us into the swirling stream like as If we were a part of a skiffload of cobblestones, take us out when we be- gan to show signs of complete exhaustion, and then when we'd rested up In the boat for a short spell, heave us overheard again. He got tired of the sport after about three-quarters Of an hour or It, and rowed us ashore.
 ..yVe had. of course, no idea who the man was About a month later Wood Hite killed by another desperado. was lying in the morgue attached to the Leav enworth calaboose. My brother and knew Donovan, the cop in charge of the oalahoose morgue, and he took us into the dead room. Donovan took the sheet from his face. and my little brother and l ex- changed chalky looks with each other. He was the man who'd been enjoying him self that day by tossing us into the mid de of the Big Muddy.
 Braoued of Their Experience.
 When we got out of the dead room we immediately began. of course. to brag