A Daughter of Maryland — page 101: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

89 A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. Iam. When I got back to Graymont I found a half dead negro, who acknowledged he was an escaping slave, concealed at the old place. He told such a pitiful story and showed such evidence of his past treatment that I was enlisted in his behalf to an extent that I gave him food and allowed him to remain in his concealment. ’’ ‘‘TIs he there now?’’ 6é No. 99 ‘‘Running off slaves is pretty bad business for a man to be engaged in. They will hang you if they catch you.’’ ‘‘They shall never do that—at least alive. I believe dead men are indifferent to hanging.’’ : ‘‘They are crossing Lash bridge,’’ said Berners, unheed- ing the latter’s words. ‘‘It is Blandon’s party, and Blandon is the worst slave hunter within a hundred miles. I should advise you to be seeking a place of safety.’’ The approaching horsemen had slackened their gait to a walk, but they must shortly reach the place where the two were standing. ‘‘Tt would be useless for me to seek concealment, for you have an advantage——’’ ‘‘John Evans is the most inhuman slaveholder in Virginia and Blandon the most cold-blooded hunter,’’ broke in his companion. ‘‘I am going down to meet sae and as if I had never seen you.’’ Without stopping for a reply Esten Berners started tek the road at a rapid gait, leaving Carroll Southard to look out for himself. ‘‘He is a strange man,’’ thought whe latter; **but his heart is in the right place.’’ | At that moment the horsemen stopped and he sudzeal they were speaking to young Berners. If that was so they must have had an extended conversation, for it was fifteen minutes later before they rode leisurely past his place of concealment and disappeared in the distance. With a feeling of relief he soon after left his covert, to