"Certainly I do. They are respectable and honest, though poor." After pouring forth a volley of oaths, and saying he wouldn't stoop so low as to notice what a nigger would say, for they were all a pack of liars, he left the office, to the great relief both of the editor and ourselves. Very soon he came to us with the pleasing report, how those pistols, so full of powder, flashed in the pan. But the slave-hunters were still so numerous, it was thought best to dress her up for another walk, and I took her to a family near Fourteenth Street, and wrote a letter in Maria's name to her master, dated it ahead, and from Windsor, Canada West, and sent it enclosed in a letter to a friend at that place, with directions to mail it to the master at the date I had given. Maria informed her master Champlin that Canada was not the cold barren country he had always told her it was, for they raised great fields of corn, and potatoes, peas and beans, and everything she saw in Kentucky; and that she had found the best of friends ever since she left home, and signed her name. In less than two weeks Kitty Darun's niece came in great haste to inform us that "Champlin had got poor Maria, and Aunt Kitty is nearly crying her eyes out over the sad news that a colored man brought over last night." "That is all a mistake." "Oh, no, it's no mistake, for that colored man worked near White Hall yesterday, and he said the report was just flying." I hushed her loud words, and whispered, "I can take you to Maria in ten minutes, I know just where she is." "Are you _sure_, and may I go tell Aunt Kitty?" "Go and whisper it, for there are but few friends who know she is still in the city, because of the close search made for her, that is still kept up." The next day she came to us with another story, "That he didn't get Maria, but got a letter from her in Canada. And that was the current report." I told her, "I understood that too, and would tell her all within a few weeks." The result of this letter was a withdrawal of all the hired hunters within twenty-four hours, and during three days' quiet two young men came from a few miles distant across the river, who got the privilege of a holiday, and of spending it nearly ten miles farther from the river than was their home. As they left the night before, they would have until the next morning before being missed. As Cazy (one of our vigilance committee) came before sunrise to inform us of the new arrival, Catharine Coffin came to my bed-room and gave me a call: "Come, Laura, here are more runaways; Cazy is here and they want thee." In less than five minutes there were four of us to decide on the plan of securing the newcomers and the one on our hands. "What shall we do? Our funds are out, we haven't a dime in our treasury," said Cozy.