Читать книгу Jesse James' Desperate Game; Or, The Robbery of the Ste. Genevieve Bank онлайн

3 страница из 49

For those who wished to toy with fortune, there were always games of poker and faro in the shanties that served as saloons; and far from these bacchanalian orgies, on canvasses spread over the fragrant needles in the pine groves, through whose boughs the moonlight glinted, youths and maidens danced to the lively melodies of banjos and guitars, played by grinning darkies.

Now and then, the rivals for the favour of some sloe-eyed beauty clashed, there were a few excited, whispered words, giving and accepting a challenge for a fight to the death on the morrow, and the frolic was resumed.

And from sunrise to sunrise, the Springs throbbed with the emotions and passions of the shifting, cosmopolitan throng.

In this Mecca of license uncontrolled, the world-famous Jesse James had bidden his men join him. In the complexities of its life, he knew they would be able to forget the godless act of the killing of Daniel Askew, a murder that baffled police and public alike. Secure in its very openness, they could laugh at the futile attempts to corral those members of their gang who had raided the town of Chouteau, in the Indian Territory, so effectually freeing the desperadoes from suspicion of complicity in the act of cowardly assassination.