They had seen a reward out, for notices were put up in the most public places, that fifty dollars would be paid for me, dead or alive, if I should not return home within so many days.

And the reader will remember that neither Jack nor myself was able to read the advertisement.

It was of very little consequence with the slave catchers, whether they killed us or took us alive, for the reward was the same to them.
After we were taken and tied, one of the men declared to me that he would have shot me dead just as sure as he lived, if I had moved one step after they commanded us to stop.

He had his gun levelled at my breast, already cocked, and his finger on the trigger.

The way they came to find us out was from the circumstance of Jack's taking the man's hat in connection with the advertisement.