It is related that at one time Quantrell’s company, after an encounter
with a party of jayhawkers, found fifteen prisoners on their hands. As was
the custom, arrangements were speedily made to put them to death. Among
the arms captured was an Enfield rifle, and as none of the guerillas had
ever seen one before, it was decided to test its merits, as they had heard
that its force was terrible. The poor prisoners were placed in a row one
behind the other, and Cole Younger, claiming that the weapon ought to kill
ten men at a shot, deliberately fired at fifteen paces. The rifle
disappointed the bloody executioner, as it killed but the first three men.
Seven shots were fired by the cruel marksman before the fifteen were
disposed of.