my harshness, and was
about to address her more kindly, when she interrupted me.

"Spare me, Sir," she said, "I know all; I am so unhappy; if I had but a
place to go to, where I could work for bread, I would do it in a minute,
for here I am very, very miserable."

At that moment the poor girl heard the footsteps of the hunters,
returning from the stable, and she quitted me in haste.

When Mr. Courtenay entered the room, he told me he expected that the
parson was planning some new iniquity, for he had seen him just then
crossing the river in a dug-out. As everything was to be feared from the
rascal, after the circumstance of the saddle-bags, we resolved that we
would keep a watch; we dragged our beds near the window, and lay down
without undressing.

To pass away the time, we talked of Captain Finn and of the Texans. Mr.
Courtenay related to me a case of negro-stealing by the same General
John Meyer, of whom my fellow companion, the parson, had already talked
so much while we travelling in Texas. One winter, Mr. Courtenay,
returning from the East, was stopped In Vincennes (Indiana) by the
depth of the snow, which for a few days rendered the roads impassable.
There he saw a very fine breed of sheep, which he determined to
introduce upon his plantation; and hearing that the general would be
coming down the river in a large flat boat as soon as the ice would
permit, he made an agreement with him that he should bring a dozen of
the animals to the plantation, which stood a few miles below the mouth
of the Ohio, on the other side of the Mississippi.

Meyer made his bargain, and two months afterwards delivered the live
stock, for which he received the price agreed upon. Then he asked
permission to encamp upon Mr. Courtenay's land, as his boat had received
some very serious injury, which could not be repaired under five or six
days. Mr. Courtenay allowed Meyer and his people to take shelter in a
brick barn, and ordered his negroes to furnish the boat-men with
potatoes and vegetables of all descriptions.

Three or four days afterwards he was astonished by, several of his
slaves informing him the general had been tampering with them, saying
they were fools to remain slaves, when they could be as free as white
men, and that if they would come down the river with him, he would take
them to Texas, where he would pay them twenty dollars a month for
their labour.

Courtenay advised them, by all means, to seem to accede to the