“My children,” he said, after musing a while on the exciting tale just told him, “I believe I can match that story o’ Thomson’s. I have a surprisin’ secret to unfol’ to you. It will make the whole business clear. White Eagle must a per-ceived his end, an’ he says to me, says he, jes’ about a month before his disease, he says, ‘Maybee, keep this here package if anything comes across me, ’tell my girl’s a re-sponsible age.’ After he was dead I said to myself--in the words of Scripter, ’a charge to keep I have’ an’ ’t ain’t safe to keep it; so I give the package to Ma’ Jane an’ she has it unto this day.” CHAPTER XVII. A week later our fugitives started for Canada via Buffalo, N. Y., by a circuitous path well known to Captain Brown. Mr. Maybee went along in an improvised ambulance, much improved in health and bearing well the fatigue of travel. The Brown camp was deserted, and the Government troops, when they arrived, found only the blackened remains of the once busy settlement. Where the Rangers had paid the penalty of their crimes against the farmers of Kansas, the grass covered the sod as if it had never been disfigured or stained. The last gun had been fired in Kansas by Brown’s forces, and he was next heard of in the Virginia insurrection which ended so fatally for the intrepid leader. After many startling adventures and narrow escapes from capture, a group of bronzed and bearded men and one woman rode up one morning to the entrance of the Grand Island Hotel. It was our friends and the Brown family. The other refugees had passed in safety over the border into Canada, and the fugitive slaves were, at last, rejoicing on free soil. The front of the hotel was deserted, the women being busy in the rear with their morning duties, and the usual hangers-on not being about. Mr. Maybee, who was lying on a bed in the bottom of the wagon, sat up as the cavalcade paused, and cried: “Ma’ Jane! Ma’--Jane!” “Ya’as,” screamed a female voice from the rear, not “like a song from afar;” or, if so, it was set in four sharps. “What’s up neow?” To which Maybee, probably reckoning on the magnetic attraction of female curiosity, made no reply, which diplomatic course instantly drew his worthy better half--a big one, too--and far better than her vocal organ. She came followed by the cook, Aunt Vinnie, and ’Tavius. “Law sakes!” she cried, sticking her plump arms akimbo and staring in amazement at the company before her, “if it ain’t Ebenezer--an’ the Englishman--an’ Jude!--an’ ’Nona!!” Her astonishment could go no farther. The next instant she had folded the girlish form in her arms in an agony of joy. “My precious child! Thank heaven we’ve got you back safe! It’s been an awful time fer you.”