A James Gang member couldn’t turn himself in.

Jim Cummins was not the most enthusiastic member of the James-Younger Gang. He served with the boys during the Civil War and joined their criminal activities around 1880. Jesse (photo) thought Jim had turned traitor and planned to kill him, but Cummins escaped to Arkansas, where he became a farmer. Throughout the 1880s, the ex-outlaw tried to turn himself into the authorities—but nobody believed him. In 1903, he wrote a book about his exploits: Jim Cummins’ Book, Written By Himself.  He died in a veterans home in 1929.

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