The sum demanded for Miss Stone’s ransom was twenty-five thousand Turkish liras, slightly less in value than so many English pounds. The American Government took no effective measures to secure the release of its subject, and it was left to the American people to subscribe the ransom money. In a few months the sum of sixty-eight thousand dollars (fourteen thousand five hundred pounds Turkish) was collected, and the American Consul-General at Constantinople went to Sofia to negotiate the ransom. But in Bulgaria he was annoyed by the people and the press, and hampered by the Government, and he soon found it impracticable to pay the money to the brigands from that side of the border. The Orthodox churchmen had no sympathy for the American evangelist and treated the affair as a grand joke, while the Government sought to prevent payment of the ransom on Bulgarian soil, lest it should be called upon by the United States at a later date to refund the amount. At the end of five months from the time of the capture, the Consul-General (Mr. Dickenson) had accomplished only an agreement with the brigands that Miss Stone should be set at liberty on payment of the sum collected in lieu of the one demanded, and he returned to Constantinople and transferred the work to a committee appointed by the American Minister on instructions from Washington. According to accounts sent to the newspapers at the time by correspondents who, with many Turkish soldiers, dogged the footsteps of the three men who formed the ransom committee, these gentlemen, Messrs. Peet, House, and Garguilo, after travelling over hundreds of miles of wild mountain roads, doubling on their tracks sometimes daily in their search for the brigands, finally despaired of paying the ransom in gold, sent the gold back to Constantinople, secured bank-notes in its stead, and paid two agents of the insurgents in paper money at a cross road when they (the committee) managed to escape the vigilance of the Turkish soldiers for a few minutes. But the correspondents were sadly duped, for necessity and the committajis demanded that they should be placed in the same category as the Turks, and regarded as dangerous characters. If a member of the committee could tell this tale it would make a most readable volume, but the committee is bound by a promise to the insurgents to keep secret certain details, and I am able to give only a bare outline of the adventure. I first learned that the original accounts of the ransoming were erroneous from Mr. Garguilo, whom I met one day at the American Legation at Constantinople, of which he is the dragoman. He was proud of having defeated some worthy men among my colleagues and the Turkish police at the same time. He told me bits of the story which whetted my curiosity, and I resolved to run it to earth.