hould be again carried back to Major Freeland; so I kept
in the woods. One day, while in the woods, I heard the barking and
howling of dogs, and in a short time they came so near, that I knew them
to be the blood-hounds of Major Benjamin O'Fallon. He kept five or six,
to hunt runaway slaves with.

As soon as I was convinced that it was them, I knew there was no chance
of escape. I took refuge in the top of a tree, and the hounds were soon
at its base, and there remained until the hunters came up in a half or
three quarters of an hour afterwards. There were two men with the dogs,
who, as soon as they came up, ordered me to descend. I came down, was
tied, and taken to St. Louis jail. Major Freeland soon made his
appearance, and took me out, and ordered me to follow him, which I did.
After we returned home, I was tied up in the smoke-house, and was very
severely whipped. After the Major had flogged me to his satisfaction, he
sent out his son Robert, a young man eighteen or twenty years of age, to
see that I was well smoked. He made a fire of tobacco stems, which soon
set me to coughing and sneezing. This, Robert told me, was the way his
father used to do to his slaves in Virginia. After giving me what they
conceived to be a decent smoking, I was untied and again set to work.

Robert Freeland was a "chip of the old block." Though quite young, it
was not unfrequently that he came home in a state of intoxication. He is
now, I believe, a popular commander of a steamboat on the Mississippi
river. Major Freeland soon after failed in business, and I was put on
board the steamboat Missouri, which plied between St. Louis and Galena.
The commander of the boat was William B. Culver. I remained on her
during the sailing season, which was the most pleasant time for me that
I had ever experienced. At the close of navigation, I was hired to Mr.
John Colburn, keeper of the Missouri Hotel. He was from one of the Free
States; but a more inveterate hater of the negro, I do not believe ever
walked on God's green earth. This hotel was at that time one of the
largest in the city, and there were employed in it twenty or thirty
servants, mostly slaves.

Mr. Colburn was very abusive, not only to the servants, but to his wife
also, who was an excellent woman, and one from whom I never knew a
servant to receive a harsh word; but never did I know a kind one to a
servant from her husband. Among the slaves employed in the hotel, was
one by the name o