Surratt disguised his speech, trying to use the dialect of a Canadian; but when he became excited from fear of being put off the train he forgot his Cannuck, and talked in good square English. The conductor also noticed that his hands were not those of a laboring man, and so concluded that the men were traveling _incognito_. This was on the early morning of the 18th of April. They arrived at St. Albans for breakfast. At the table they found everybody excited, and upon Surratt's inquiring what it meant, his next neighbor at the table, an old gentleman, informed him that the President had been assassinated, to which Surratt replied that "The news was too good to be true." The old gentleman then handed him a paper, and on looking it over he saw his own name given as one of the assassins. He dropped the paper, and found that he did not want any more breakfast. On passing out into the next room, he heard some one say that Surratt must be in town, or had passed through, as his handkerchief had been found in the street; when, upon feeling for his handkerchief, he found that he had lost it. They then left the place as quickly as possible, narrowly escaping arrest. He understood that his handkerchief had been picked up in the street of St. Albans, and no doubt, in the excitement, the news had taken that shape, but, as we have seen, he lost it at Burlington depot, and so the news must have been telegraphed to St. Albans. [Illustration: JOHN H. SURRATT.] It is not known how they traveled from St. Albans to Montreal, but it is most probable that they walked across the country. We find Surratt's name on the hotel register at Montreal, where he arrived at about two o'clock on the 18th of April, he having been absent from that place from the 12th. This had been to him an eventful week, full of difficulties and hazards; but he may now feel safe, as he has reached the abode of the chief conspirators, his employers, and is ready to claim his reward. He can feel that he is in the midst of sympathizing friends. But, alas! a criminal can never feel safe. An angry God is ever on the track of the guilty conscience. As it was with the first murderer, so it must be with every murderer,--a fugitive and a vagabond he is compelled to be. He had hardly recorded his name on the hotel register when he was informed that detectives were on the look-out for him, and he was at once spirited away to the house of a Mr. Porterfield. This man was a Southerner, who belonged to Thompson's cabal, but who had abjured his allegiance to his country and taken the oath of allegiance to the Queen of England, and had thus become a British subject. He knew all about the conspiracy, and the means that had been employed to carry it into effect; and was waiting and watching anxiously for the return of his co-conspirators that had been sent to Washington on their mission of assassinations. He at once took Surratt into his house, and kept him secreted there for several days.