If I did not succeed in making my escape, during this passage across the land, all hope of regaining my liberty would be gone.
True, I might learn where this Master of the World hid himself.

I might learn what no one had yet been able to discover, assuming always that he did not dispose of me at one time or another--and what I expected his "disposal" would be, is easily comprehended.
I knew the northeast end of Lake Erie well, having often visited that section of New York State which extends westward from Albany to Buffalo.

Three years before, a police mission had led me to explore carefully the shores of the Niagara River, both above and below the cataract and its Suspension Bridge.

I had visited the two principal islands between Buffalo and the little city of Niagara Falls, I had explored Navy Island and also Goat Island, which separates the American falls from those of the Canadian side.
Thus if an opportunity for flight presented itself, I should not find myself in an unknown district.

But would this chance offer?
And at heart, did I desire it, or would I seize upon it?
What secrets still remained in this affair in which good fortune or was it evil fortune--had so closely entangled me! On the other hand, I saw no real reason to suppose that there was any chance of my reaching the shores of the Niagara River.