e worker that's beat
the government somehow, maybe. But she don't look it--I'll be
damned if she looks it. I wonder--?"

Dunwody, left to himself, began moodily to walk up and down the
narrow deck, his hands behind his back. On his face was the red
fighting flush, but it was backed by no expression of definite
purpose, and his walk showed his mental uncertainty. All at once
he turned and with decision passed down the stairs to the lower
deck. He had heard voices which he recognized.

Judge Clayton had joined the party in charge of the fugitives, and
was now in conversation with the overseer, a short man clad in a
coarse blue jacket, with high boots and greasy leather trousers.
The latter was expatiating exultantly upon his own bravery and
shrewdness in effecting the recapture of his prisoners.

"Why, Jedge," said he, "fust off it di'n't look like we'd ever git
track of 'em at all. I cotched the trail at Portsmouth at last,
and follered 'em back into Ohio. They was shore on the
'underground' and bound for Canada, or leastways Chicago. I found
'em in a house 'way out in the country--midnight it was when we got
thar. I'd summonsed the sher'f and two constables to go 'long.
Farm-house was a underground railway station all right, and the
farmer showed fight. We was too much fer him, and we taken 'em out
at last, but one of the constables got shot--some one fired right
through the winder at us. This Lily gal was the wust of the lot,
and I don't put it a-past her to 'a' done some of the shootin'
herself. But we brung 'em all along.

"Now, Jedge," he continued, "of co'se, I think I can do something
for these two bucks Bill and Jim--this gal only persuaded 'em to
run away with her. But if I was you, I shore would sell that Lily
gal South, right away. She's bound fer to make trouble, and
nothin' but trouble, fer you as long as you keep her round the
place."

The speaker, coarse and ignorant, presented a contrast to the tall,
dignified and quiet gentleman whom he accosted, and who now stood,
with hands in pockets, looking on with genuine concern on his face.

"Lily," said he at length, "what makes you act this way? Haven't
you always been treated well down there at home?"

"Yas, sir, I reckon so," replied the girl sullenly; "well as
anybody's niggahs is!"

"Then why do you want to run off? This is the third time in the
last year. I've been kind to you--I say, Dunwody," he went on,
turning suddenly as h