Early Settlements of Southeast Kansas.—Texas Cattle Fever Trouble.—The
Osage Indians and Firewater.—Poor Mrs. Bennett.—How
Terwilliger's Cattle Stampeded.—Why the Curtises Moved
On.—The Odens Murder Parker.—Parker Was Avenged.—Jane
Heaton and Her Smith & Wesson Revolver.—What Became of the
Benders.
In 1867 I went to Labette county, and located on 160 acres of land
three miles from where the notorious Bender family committed their
horrible murders in 1873. Shortly after locating, together with all of
the settlers on Timber Hill creek, I got mixed up in the Texas cattle
fever trouble that broke out along the Indian Territory border.
At the time the trouble was on an old man and his son who was about
35 years old had taken up a claim on Big Hill creek down near the
Montgomery county line, and had established a trading-post and were
selling whisky to the Osage Indians, who had recently ceded their lands
and were preparing to move south and west to their present reserve.
Milt Adams, James Bennett and myself were delegated to wait on the old
man Curtis and son to tell them to quit selling liquor to the Osage
Indians. They both denied ever selling them any at all. But we had the
indisputable evidence from the best of sources that they had. I said:
"Look here, you see that cabin down there on the prairie? That is the
extreme frontier cabin that a white man lives in the border. That's
John Bennett's home. And that was his wife, who, day before yesterday,
was compelled to stand over a hot cook stove, in a little cluttered up
room, and cook meat and bake nearly half a sack of flour into biscuits
for a party of drunken Osage Indians that got their whisky here and
went straight from here to Bennett's. You both know that in point of
personal valor when sober the Osage is a coward, and cowards have to
get drunk to be dangerous. Of course the worst injury Mrs. Bennett
received was fright, and now that poor woman is prostrate and the
Timber and Big Hill settlements will hold you fellows responsible for
it."
A man by the name of Terwilliger had a large corral on Cherry creek
near its junction with the Nipawalla, or Drum creek, and on the western
border of our settlement. He was grazing about 600 head of long-horned
Texas cattle. He had repeatedly been requested to move his cattle
farther west, beyond the danger-line, but paid no heed to the wish of
the settlers. The day that Mr. Curtis and son were advised "to seek
other parts," which they did, that same night, some one rode along the
east side of Terwilliger's corral, where 600 steers were lying down
chewing their cuds, and threw a big cat over the fence plump on a steer.
Ugh-ee! _Woof!_ and the ground fairly trembled. The stampede was on.
The eight-rail staked and double-ridered fence was no barrier. Some
of the rails were carried 200 feet from the fence. And most of the
cattle were twenty-five miles southwest by noon the next day when their
herders caught up with them.
It was suspected that the son of a Methodist circuit rider delivered
the cat to the steer, his father having supplicated the Sunday before,
"that we might be spared from the dreadful scourge of the Texas fever."
This fever was fatal to domestic cattle, but did not seem to affect the
native cattle of Texas either at home or on the drive northward. And
since the long-horned breeds have become nearly extinct, by crossing
and recrossing of breeds, Texas fever is scarcely heard of now. But in
early times in southern Kansas eternal vigilance from July to the first
killing frost was the price of milk. Had the settlers not been vigilant
those days the children along the border would have cried for milk; for
Kansas had not yet made any dead-line legislation against Texas cattle.
During the latter part of the winter of 1869, the two Oden brothers
killed young Parker over a claim dispute. The killing took place at
the house on the disputed claim near the mouth of Onion creek, on the
west side of the Verdigris river, in Montgomery county, which was not
yet organized. Osage township, the one I lived in in Labette county,
was the nearest judicial point to the place of the killing. A mob
gathered and surrounded the Oden house near the scene of the murder, as
it afterwards proved to be. The mob's purpose was to give the Odens a
trial, with Judge Lynch on the bench. But when inky darkness came on,
the Odens slipped by the guards and went to, and surrendered to the
Justice of the Peace, Wm. H. Carpenter, of Osage township.
I was township constable at the time. Their revolvers, four in number,
were handed to me. Subpœnas were given to me to serve on witnesses for
the defense, in the neighborhood where the deed was perpetrated. I
deputized Henry Waymire to take charge of Bill Oden during my absence;
also, Mahlon King, the son of a Methodist minister, to go with me
to Onion creek and help to guard and protect Tom Oden, whom we took
with us, by his own and also by his brother's request. Tom had told
us, which proved to be true, that if he went home alone he might be
killed; that his wife was in delicate health, and that he was anxious
to see her and allay her fears about him.
We left the residence of the Justice of the Peace about four in the
afternoon. It was twenty-five miles southwest to where we were to go.
When darkness came on we were on a treeless prairie, taking a course
for a trading-post near the mouth of Pumpkin creek, where we arrived
about ten o'clock at night. We found about twenty-five men who had
congregated there before we reached the post. We had tied a large
woolen scarf around the neck, face, and head of our volunteer prisoner,
and passed him off for one of my deputies. One of the witnesses that
I was to subpœna was a clerk at this trading-post. I dismounted, went
inside, and handed a copy of the subpœna to the clerk, took a look at
the crowd, and was starting out, when one of the party asked me where
the Odens were. My reply was, "Under a strong guard at Timber Hill."
I was then asked who the other two fellows were outside. I answered,
"Two deputy constables." I was then asked to take a glass of whisky. I
replied that "I never drank," which was the second misstatement I had
made to them. That was an ominous-looking crowd. I learned afterwards
that my first lie had saved Tom Oden's life for a time, and perhaps
Mahlon King's and my own. Had the prisoner not given himself up to the
majesty of the law? And was he not entitled to a fair trial by the law?
And would it not have been inexcusable cowardice had we not defended
him to the last?
After leaving the traders we soon came to the Verdigris river, which
was more than half bank-full, and was sparsely settled on both sides to
the Indian Territory line. Near the mouth of Onion creek we left our
horses at an old negro's on the east bank of the river and called up
Mr. Phelps, who lived on the west bank eighty rods down the river. At
this time I did not know Mr. Phelps was to be the main witness for the
State against the Odens. Tom Oden said to me, when we arrived opposite
Mr. Phelps's, that "Old Phelps keeps a skiff, and if you will call him
up we can cross here; then it is only a mile down home, with a plain
road all the way." Then he added: "I'd rather not let the old man know
who I am at present, and if I was to call for him he might recognize my
voice."
I hallooed twice, and the response was, "What is wanted?" I answered,
"There are three of us here from the Timber Hills, and we wish to cross
the river." He remarked: "It is now nearly midnight. Can't you go to
the house a little way down the river and wait till morning? Then I'll
row you over." I told him our business was urgent, and that "we must
cross at once." He said, "all right; I'll soon be there."
When Mr. Phelps came down the bank he set a lantern in the bow of the
boat. He did not use oars, but sat in the stern and paddled across,
and, as he neared our side, let the boat drift to the bank, bow up
stream.
I caught the gunwale at the bow and said to the prisoner, who yet had
his head and face muffled, "Rogers, you get in first."
Mr. Phelps said, "I can't take but two of you at once."
I said, "Mahlon, you get in here, then, near the bow."
Mr. Phelps then asked me to hold the lantern up high, as he believed
he could make the other bank at a place he wished to land better than
if they took the lantern with them. The river here was about 200 feet
wide, and very deep, with a strong current.
The boat had not gotten more than ten feet from the shore, when Oden
shifted his position suddenly, which tilted the boat violently and
threw Mr. Phelps into the river. I called to Mahlon King to throw me
the bow-line, but he caught up the line and leaped towards shore, the
bank at that place being a gradual slope towards shore. He made a few
strokes, and found footing.
Phelps, being in the stern of the boat when tilted out, was farther
out in the stream; for he had backed out to swing the bow around; and
when pitched out he was in deep and pretty swift water. There were some
long overhanging limbs just below him, which, on account of the swollen
condition of the stream, nearly reached the water. Mr. Phelps was
calling for help.
I dropped the lantern, jerked both six-shooters out of their scabbards,
dropped them on the ground, ran down the stream about thirty feet,
plunged in, and swam out under the branches, just in time to catch Mr.
Phelps by his coat-sleeve with my right hand, at the same time holding
on to a sweeping limb with my left hand. Soon we were ashore, paddle
and all, for he had hung onto it while struggling in the water.
Here we were, three of us, wet as drowned rats, and Tom Oden, a
cold-blooded murderer, dry as a powder-horn.
I had not the slightest suspicion at the time that Oden tilted the
boat intentionally, hoping to drown Mr. Phelps in order to get rid of
a damaging witness against the Odens. Replacing my pistols in their
holsters, I got in the boat in front of Mr. Phelps and said, "Now,
Rogers, get in and we will try it again, and be very careful and sit
still."
Whether he thought, by my getting in the boat instead of King, that my
suspicions were aroused and that I might shoot him in another attempt
to tilt the boat, I am unable to say.
We went on to Oden's cabin, after crossing, and before a large open
fireplace dried our clothing, and got a few cat-naps before daylight.
All the time and throughout the entire day until we started back, Tom
Oden was in an adjoining room with Mrs. Oden.
I left King at the house, and rode to different cabins that forenoon,
hunting for the witnesses I had subpœnas for.
I could not help but notice that a pall had fallen over the people.
Expressions of lament, and the high esteem in which Parker had been
held by the entire community,—this, together with their outspoken
condemnation, from men who had grown to manhood on the frontier, boded
no good for the Odens. And I felt that the brand of Cain and the seal
of death had been placed upon them.
When I came back to the Oden cabin I got King and Oden together and
gave them my impressions; and Oden said, "Yes, there are men in this
country that want us put out of the way." Meaning himself and his
brother.
I said, "We must still carry out our deception and claim him as
belonging in our party." Accordingly, we planned to leave for Timber
Hill at four o'clock. I walked up to Mr. Phelps's, and got him to set
me back across the river.
From there I went to the old darky's and got the three horses, and went
down the river a mile and a half to where the other two men had crossed
the river, quite at the mouth of Onion creek.
After mounting I said: "Now, boys, you two keep right up the river,
pass the old darky's, and head so as to cross Pumpkin creek half-way
between the Verdigris and the trading-post." (Before alluded to.) "I
will strike straight from here to the post."
Then I said to King, "You know the course to the mouth of Wild Cat;
keep straight on it, and if I am not there by the time you are, go to
old Mr. McCarmac's on Big Hill and wait for me."
They started up the river. I rode out of the timber and brush that
skirted the river and headed straight across the prairie for the
trading-post.
When a little less than a mile from the place I came in sight of it and
noticed a large crowd of men outside the store. I put my horse in a
lope, galloped up to them and dismounted, saying, "Hello, boys."
This place was known as the Gokey Store. One of the Gokeys came up
and shook hands with me (we were quite well acquainted), and he said:
"So it was you that passed here last night. I just got in to-day with
a load of freight and learned of the trouble just before you came in
sight. Where are the other two men?" (He had been told that there were
three of us passed his place the night before.)
I told him: "I do not know where they are, but I left them opposite the
mouth of Onion creek."
Gokey took me to one side and informed me that there were about twenty
of the crowd had provisioned a wagon and were going to Timber Hill to
be at the preliminary hearing of the Odens, which was to be held at a
log school-house in our township, about one and one-fourth miles south
of the justice's residence.
I omitted to state that when the Odens came up to surrender, they
brought with them a young man by the name of Powell as witness for the
defense. He was the only eye-witness to the killing of Parker, beside
the Odens.
When I left the Gokey store, a few minutes after arriving there, the
queer feeling of impending danger and trouble came over me, and that
serious trouble might yet occur while those two prisoners were still in
our charge.
Shortly after crossing the ford at the north and south trail, I struck
off across a trackless prairie for the mouth of Wild Cat creek. I
found on arriving there that King and Oden had crossed and were only
a short distance ahead of me. It had become quite dark when I caught
up with them. I said, "Look here, Oden, from this on we will have to
use the utmost caution for your safety, while you are in my charge.
So when we get to Big Hill you two fellows take the hill road and
hurry on to Carpenter's, and I'll keep up the creek bottom trail to
the school-house and bring some more deputies with me to Carpenter's;"
which I did.
I arrived at Carpenter's after midnight with seven men whom I knew
could be depended upon in any emergency. There were now at Justice
Carpenter's the two Odens, young Powell, their witness, eight deputies
and myself.
The time for the trial had been set for 2 P. M. the next day.
When we arrived at the school-house, just before proceedings commenced,
we beheld a motley-looking crowd. There were about thirty of the Timber
Hill and about fifteen of the Big Hill settlers. Added to these were
the twenty-odd men from near the scene of the murder, twenty-five miles
away.
There were men dressed in the garb of homespun butter-nut, a cloth made
on the hand-looms of the day. Some were yet wearing their old army
uniforms, the well-known sky-blue trousers, navy-blue blouse, with
brass buttons with the American eagle upon them, the blue overcoat with
the long or short cape,—a distinction between an ex-cavalryman and
ex-infantryman. Others were there togged out in the then up-to-date
store clothes and "biled" shirt. The horses were tied to wagons in
front of the school-house, on the open prairie and to trees in the
rear. Camp-fires were burning in different places, on each side and
behind the house.
These men were walking arsenals. Nearly all were each carrying two
six-shooters, and among them were rifles of many different patterns.
One man could be seen with a long-barreled Hawkins rifle, while his
neighbor carried an army Enfield, one a Springfield, and one man an old
brass-band American musket. Some had the Gallagher, some the Spencer,
and some carried Sharp's carbine.
Not a man was there through idle curiosity, but either to kill the
Odens or see fair play. It was learned afterward that the twenty men
who had come up from Gokey's had held a council just before they came
to the school-house and decided that, in killing the Odens on that
trip, they might have to kill others and at the same time sacrifice
some of their own lives. They decided not to use one bit of testimony
they had for the State. Simply let the whole thing go by default and
bide their time.
So the trial came off—or rather, the hearing. Bill Oden, the first
witness after young Powell had given his forced-by-threat testimony,
stated to the jury that it was very unfortunate that he had killed the
young man; that he only intended to disable him so that he could do no
harm; had struck with the handspike a harder lick than he had intended.
Tom Oden said that Parker had murder in him when he came to the cabin;
that he tried to reason with him, to no purpose; that had his brother
not struck him with the spike before he shot the second time,—he
claimed Parker had shot at his brother once; but Powell afterward
stated that was false; that he, Parker, might have killed all of them.
And all this time not a protest; while on the other hand, the Odens had
made out a clean case of self-defense. The jury brought in, from under
the boughs of an oak tree out in the wood, a verdict, "Guilty of an
excusable homicide." Thus closed one of the greatest farces of a trial,
in jurisprudence.
A few days after the Odens returned home they were literally
bullet-riddled by a determined party of men, some thirty in number,
starting from Chetopa and augmenting until Gokey's trading-post was
reached.
Unintentionally, in the killing of the Odens, young Powell was shot
through the bowels. He then swam the Verdigris river and escaped
them, as he thought, at the time. He did not know that they held him
blameless for his part in the Oden affair; but the mob, if such it
could be called, had heard from his mother his own story to her of the
killing of Parker, which was cold-blooded and cruel; also, the threat
that if he did not tell the story of the killing as they told him to,
they would kill him too. They told him that his mother was a poor
woman who could not well spare him. Young Powell was possessed of very
ordinary intellect, neither self-assertive nor self-reliant, and just
such a subject as Tom Oden's magnetism could control.
Some of the party that came out from Chetopa, not knowing the Odens or
Powell personally, fired on Powell as he started to run, when they came
up to where he and Bill Oden happened to be as they were together at
the time. But as soon as the mistake was noticed he was allowed to get
away and the same party rendered him valuable assistance afterward.
I met young Powell in Chetopa, early in 1870. He told me that, as they
were walking over the prairie toward home the next day after the trial,
Tom Oden told him he had tried to drown Phelps the night he tilted the
boat, but as Phelps had not come forward and testified against him it
was just as well that he was not in the Verdigris river for fish-bait.
The following year, Montgomery county was organized, and her legal
machinery was set and ready to grind.
That summer, a man by the name of Sam Heaton dropped into our
neighborhood; went just over the line and took up a claim that the
present site of Cherryvale is on. Leaving his wife, household goods and
some lumber on the claim, Heaton, with four yoke of oxen and a large
wagon, started to a saw-mill near Humboldt, about four days' journey,
for more lumber. During his absence the covetous eye of a man named
Soaper fell on the claim, and he ordered Mrs. Heaton to move off the
land, stating to her that he was the first settler on it, and that his
building material was on the ground near the southwest corner. Mrs. H.
did not move.
The next day Soaper and a party of several men came and moved
everything they had there at the time, except the tent she was in and
what it contained, including herself, just over the line onto the next
claim north. Mrs. Heaton stood in the door of her tent with a Smith &
Wesson revolver in her hand, and refused to budge.
The men rode away, telling her they would be back in the morning and
move _her_.
She mounted her pony that night and rode to Carpenter's, and stated
her case. Carpenter came to where I was at work, on my own place, the
next morning, and informed me what had happened. We soon gathered ten
settlers together, mounted and galloped across that six miles of virgin
prairie, laughing and joking like a lot of school-boys out for a
lark, Mrs. Heaton riding along with us in the lead, her Smith & Wesson
hanging to its belt around her waist.
In point of real value, for permanent home-making, we, perhaps, had
crossed a dozen as good or better claims that could be had for the
taking; for they were unoccupied portions of the public domain. But
Heaton had selected the particular claim in question and "squatters'
rights" was the slogan of the times. The moral law of every frontier
settlement is held inviolate and will brook no interference. Besides,
custom made propriety. And it was customary for a would-be settler to
take any unoccupied piece of the public domain, to the extent of one
hundred and sixty acres, that he wanted. Heaton had taken his claim in
due form; for the day he located it I was with him. His headquarters
were at my house, where he and his wife were camped while he was
looking the country over for a home.
Heaton and myself were at every corner of the 160 that day. We were
both riding horses fully sixteen hands high. The grass was not over
eighteen inches high; the ground was fairly level; the tract was not
cut up with ravines or draws. We both had excellent eyesight; there
was not at that time a wagon-trail on it. Soaper nor anyone else had a
vestige of lumber on the place the day he said he had. He simply lied,
as his own conscience compelled him to afterward admit, after he had
been the means of bringing two communities to the verge of a feud with
bloodshed.
We all galloped to the tent, dismounted, and carried all the things
back onto the claim and piled them up neatly by the tent. Then three of
the men fell to and helped Mrs. Heaton get a mid-forenoon meal, while
the rest of us rode diagonally across the claim to where Soaper had
his lumber. We found thirty-two boards, one inch thick, one foot wide
and twelve feet long, of native lumber, from a saw-mill over on the
Neosho river, twenty-eight miles away. We wrote out a trespass notice,
fastened it to a board, and returned to the tent, where shortly an
early dinner was announced.
On our way down, in crossing a prong of Cherry creek, a two-year-old
spike buck white-tail deer jumped up, not more than thirty steps in
front of us. John Oliphant whipped out one of his six-shooters and
placed a ball in the back of its head where the neck joined on. It was
quick action. He claimed he shot more at random than with deliberation.
But it got the deer. We drew the carcass and Milt Adamson carried the
deer in front of him to the tent.
While we were eating and had nearly finished our meal of fried venison,
corn-bread, boiled potatoes and browned gravy, Mrs. Heaton announced
that "horsemen were approaching from the south." We all arose from the
improvised table, stirred around, gathered up our horses that were
grazing around the tent, and awaited developments. There were four of
them. They rode quite up to us, when Soaper said:
"How do you do, men?"
"Fine, fi-fi-fine," said Ike Vancel, who had a slight impediment in his
speech. "We j-j-jist had a belly-full of d-d-deer meat."
This seemed to put both parties, for the time, in a good humor. Vancel
was an acknowledged wit, was a polite and courteous gentleman, a man of
sound judgment, and one who liked to see fair play.
Soaper was the next to speak:
"I seen you men here, and thought, me and these friends of mine, that
we would come over and tell you that _I_ took this claim, and hauled
lumber onto it four days before this other party did."
Carpenter said:
"I don't know anything about that part of it, but _we_, that are here,
_all do know_ that it was a dirty, cowardly deed for you and your gang
to come here and hector and threaten just one lone woman that only
weighs eighty-nine pounds. You fellows make yourselves scarce, and if
this woman is molested again during her husband's absence there will
not be enough left of you, Soaper, to make soap-grease."
They rode away, Soaper saying: "We'll settle this in the courts." Two
weeks later we were all arrested at our homes, charged with "committing
a breach against the peace and dignity of Montgomery county, Kansas."
We were all rounded up at Justice Carpenter's house, having been served
with warrants, one at a time, by one lone half-Swede Constable. Any
one of us could have resisted him with impunity, so far as he was
concerned. But the "process" was enough. We were law-abiding citizens.
Just as the last prisoner had arrived at Carpenter's, a lone horseman
was seen approaching from the northeast. Our course to where we were
going lay to the southwest. We waited for this horseman to come up
to where we were, regardless of the protests of the constable, who
insisted that "our trial was set for three o'clock that afternoon; that
it was about ten miles to where we were to go, and we had no time to
lose."
When the rider came up he proved to be a lawyer and a recent arrival
from the east, hunting for a place to hang out a shingle. We had a
short talk with him, and informed him of the cause of the gathering,
whereupon he said:
"Go ahead, boys. I'll follow up and rob the dead."
This man was Bishop W. Perkins, afterward a member of Congress.
When we arrived at the place of trial, we found there a man by the
name of Hartshorn, a lawyer, recently from Woodson county, who was to
be the prosecuting attorney in the case. We were all a happy-go-lucky
lot of prisoners; and when Hartshorn arose with a serious look on his
countenance, read the complaint, and had expatiated on the gravity of
the offense, we all arose and gave him three cheers.
"Bully for Hartshorn," said Ike Vancel.
The ridiculousness of the whole thing had appealed to the funny side of
our natures. We called him "Old Essence of Ammonia," and yelled to him
to "Give us another smell."
On the way down to the place, Perkins had volunteered to defend us.
He now pitched in and handled a vocabulary of words that took us all
by surprise. He juggled words and phrases in such rapid succession
that he completely spellbound his hearers. He wound up by painting a
word picture of frail little Mrs. Heaton, alone on a desolate prairie,
about to be devoured by human wolves. When he closed, Vancel said: "I
m-m-move that we adjourn," which we did, by getting on our horses and
riding home.
Thus ended the second "legal farce" I had seen during the early
settlement of southeastern Kansas.
* * * * *
I was in Denison, Texas, when the news of the Bender murders was
heralded throughout the land, and that one of my old neighbors was in
jail at Oswego, under suspicion of being implicated in those crimes. He
was the only man in the neighborhood with whom I had had any personal
trouble, and that was caused by his hogs and my fence,—his hogs not
being allowed to run at large by law, and my fence not being hog-tight.
And over that difficulty we had drifted apart, and seemed to cultivate
a dislike for each other.
He was a Methodist preacher, of the old Peter Cartwright school; but
had an inordinate love for liquor, and, periodically, he would get
"as full as a goose," and about as silly. When sobering up he would
be struck with the remorse of a guilty conscience, for the sin he had
committed and the example he had set before the people. He was judged
by his neighbors while in these melancholy moods, as being insincere,
hypocritical and mysteriously secretive. Not _all_ of us, for there
were those of us who believed the old gentleman was conscientious in
his religious preachings and teachings.
When I read the news of his arrest, I hastened to his relief, firmly
believing in his innocence. And here the Golden Rule impressed itself
upon my mind more than it ever did before. I believed that Parson King
was as innocent of the crime as myself; but before I reached Oswego he
had been vindicated and released from custody.
I went up into my old neighborhood where I had been one of the first
settlers and had helped to build the first hewed log house that was
built on the prairies of Labette county. A blight had been cast on the
entire community. Not two miles from where I helped to build the house
mentioned above, I gazed on the open graves of the Bender's victims.
Personally, I think I was better known, and knew that people better
in the first settlement of western Labette, eastern Montgomery, and
southern Woodson, than any other man.
While John Harness, of Ladore, was suspected of being an accomplice of
the crime, he undoubtedly was as innocent as his accusers were. 'Twas
the same with Brockman, whom the Independence party hung to a tree on
Drum creek until life was almost extinct; although Brockman was a cruel
and inhuman man to his own family.
No, the Benders had no accomplices. But neighbor had distrusted
neighbor, and some were standing aloof from others.
I sold farm machinery in that locality the summer of the spring that
the Benders disappeared and the bodies of their victims were found.
I was traveling for B. A. Aldrich, a hardware man of Parsons, Kan. I
was from house to house, and became familiar with all the neighborhood
stories, versions, and suspicions about the Bender murders.
What became of the Benders? Read on in this book under the caption of
the "Staked Plains Horror" during the summer of 1877. Listen to the
story as told to me, as the narrator and I were lying on our blankets,
with our saddles for pillows, the night of the 20th of July, on the
border of western Texas and eastern New Mexico. Then let the readers
judge for themselves what became of the Benders. Yes, let them decide
for themselves as to the truth or falsity of the story. I believed the
story _then_, I believe it _now_.