indeed, surmised at the time, every one of them was intercepted by her father or brothers, and she did not know where I was and so could not write to me. I left Dover in May and went down to New York. I had some business there which was soon transacted, and early in June I went over to New Jersey—to Oxford, a small place near Belvidere.

This place I meant to make my base of operations for the new campaign I had been planning all winter. I "put up" at a public house kept by a man who was known in the region round about as the "Boston Yankee," for he migrated from Boston to New Jersey and was doing a thriving business at hotel keeping in Oxford. What a thorough good-fellow he was will presently appear. I had been in the hotel four days and had become pretty intimate with the landlord before I ventured to make inquiries about what I was most anxious to learn; but finally I asked him if he knew the Scheimers over the river? He looked at me in a very comical way, and then broke out:

"Well, I declare, I thought I knew you, you're the chap that tried to run away with old Scheimer's daughter Sarah, last August; and you're down here to get her this time, if you can."

I owned up to my identity, but warned Boston Yankee that if he told any one who I was, or that I was about there, I'd blow his brains out.

"You keep cool," said he, "don't you be uneasy; I'm your friend and the gal's friend, and I'll help you both all I can; and if you want to carry off Sarah Scheimer and marry her, I'll tell you how to work it. You see she has been watched as closely as possible all winter, ever since she got well, for she was crazy-like, awhile. Well, you could'n't get nearer to her, first off, than you could to the North Pole; but do you remember Mary Smith who was servant gal, there when you boarded with Scheimer?" I remembered the girl well and told him so, and he continued: "Well, I saw her the other day, and she told me she was living in Easton, and where she could be found; now, I'll give you full directions and do you take my horse and buggy to-morrow morning early and go down and see her, and get her to go over and let Sarah know that you're round; meantime I'll keep dark; I know my business and you know yours."

I need not say how overjoyed I was to find this new and most unexpected friend, and how gratefully I accepted his offer. He gave me the street, house and number where Mary Smith lived and during the evening we planned together exactly how the whole affair was to be managed, from beginning to end. I went to bed, but could scarcely sleep; and all night long I was agitated by alternate hopes and fears for the success of the scheme of to-morrow.