What she learned was that Baillie Pegram's wound had been too severe to admit of his transportation far beyond Washington, and that he, in company with a few other prisoners in like condition, had been placed in an improvised hospital a few miles north of the capital city, where he still lay under treatment, with only a slender chance of recovery. Her first impulse was to go to Washington at once, and endeavour in some way to secure permission to enter the hospital as a nurse. Her friends in Washington and in Maryland discouraged this attempt, assuring her not only of its futility, but of its danger. They were convinced, indeed, that she could not even enter Washington, which was then a vast fortified camp, without the discovery of her identity by the agents of a secret service which had become well-nigh omniscient, so far as personal identities, personal histories, and personal intentions were concerned. "Stay where you are," one of them urgently wrote her, "and keep yourself free to act if at any time a chance shall come to accomplish any good. It would spoil all and destroy the last vestige of hope, for you to attempt what you suggest. You can do no good here. You may do inestimable good if you remain where you are." When this decision was communicated to Sam, his round black face became long, and the look of laughter completely went out of his countenance. But Sam was not an easily discouraged person, and he had come to believe in his own sagacity. So after a day or two of disconsolate moping, he set his wits at work upon this new problem. Presently an idea was born to him, and he went at once to lay it before Agatha for consideration. "Mis' Agatha," he said, "even ef you cawn't git to Mas' Baillie, Sam kin, an' that'll be better'n nothin', won't it?" "Yes, Sam," answered the sad-eyed young woman, "very much better than nothing. You could take care of your master, and be a comfort to him, and if the time ever should come when anything could be done for him, you'd be on the ground to help. But how can you get to him?" "I could manage dat, ef I was a free nigga," answered the boy, meditatively. "But you are free, I suppose," said Agatha. "You've been brought to a free State, practically with your master's consent, and that makes you free, I believe. But--" "O, I don't want to be a sho' 'nuff free nigga," interrupted Sam. "I ain't never a-gwine to be dat. I'se a-gwine to 'long to Mas' Baillie cl'ar to de end o' de cawn rows. But I done heah folks up heah say dat de Yankees is a-sendin' back all de niggas what runs away from der mahstahs, an' ef I ain't got nuffin' to say I'se free, dey'd sen' me back to Ferginny ef I went down dat way whar Mas' Baillie is."