thinking so much about. I could stand his loss, if
it wasn't for the principle of the thing, the base ingratitude he has
shown me. Oh, if I ever lay hands on him again!" Mr. Leckler closed
his lips and clenched his fist with an eloquence that laughed at
words.

Just at this time, in one of the underground railway stations, six
miles north of the Ohio, an old Quaker was saying to Josh: "Lie
still,--thee'll be perfectly safe there. Here comes John Trader, our
local slave catcher, but I will parley with him and send him away.
Thee need not fear. None of thy brethren who have come to us have ever
been taken back to bondage.--Good-evening, Friend Trader!" and Josh
heard the old Quaker's smooth voice roll on, while he lay back half
smothering in a bag, among other bags of corn and potatoes.

It was after ten o'clock that night when he was thrown carelessly into
a wagon and driven away to the next station, twenty-five miles to the
northward. And by such stages, hiding by day and traveling by night,
helped by a few of his own people who were blessed with freedom, and
always by the good Quakers wherever found, he made his way into
Canada. And on one never-to-be-forgotten morning he stood up,
straightened himself, breathed God's blessed air, and knew himself
free!

III

To Joshua Leckler this life in Canada was all new and strange. It was
a new thing for him to feel himself a man and to have his manhood
recognized by the whites with whom he came into free contact. It was
new, too, this receiving the full measure of his worth in work. He
went to his labor with a zest that he had never known before, and he
took a pleasure in the very weariness it brought him. Ever and anon
there came to his ears the cries of his brethren in the South.
Frequently he met fugitives who, like himself, had escaped from
bondage; and the harrowing tales that they told him made him burn to
do something for those whom he had left behind him. But these
fugitives and the papers he read told him other things. They said
that the spirit of freedom was working in the United States, and
already men were speaking out boldly in behalf of the manumission of
the slaves; already there was a growing army behind that noble
vanguard, Sumner, Phillips, Douglass, Garrison. He heard the names of
Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and his heart swelled, for on
the dim horizon he saw the first faint streaks of dawn.

So the years passed. Then from the surcharg