"Yes, sah." Said I, "Hughes, be careful, be careful. Your excitement will betray us if you are not _very careful_." "We don't know what rabble we are going to meet, and I propose to be ready fur 'em." "There is nothing known of this company, and I know we are safe." "I don't know it; and if they make the first move to stop us, be ready, boys." "All ready." There were two six-shooters behind me, and one in the hand of Hughes, that I feared much more than all the slave-holders in Kentucky. But we were soon relieved by the remark of one, as we were passing, "It was well we stopped that bent from falling, or't would have killed Smith as dead as a hammer." We found by this that they had been to the raising of a building, and a number of them were more than half drunk. After going a mile or two farther, and our excitement was over, I took leave of our company, with a charge to keep quiet and all would be well, and returned to Levi Coffin's by twelve o'clock. The following morning we received a good report from our conductor, Hughes, of the safe delivery of this valuable freight in the Quaker settlement depot, where they were forwarded to Canada. CHAPTER VI. FUGITIVE SLAVES ASSISTED. The exciting intelligence reached us that Clara and her three little ones were about to be captured by slave-holders in the city, on Pearl Street. I called on her at once, and found the house was surrounded the night before by strangers, who were followed to a hotel, and on the record the name of her master's son was found. Poor woman! She had passed through great suffering in making her escape with her two children; a third was born in Cincinnati--yet it too must share the anticipated fate of its mother. She had always been a house-servant, but found the death of her master was about to make great changes, he being deeply in debt. By the aid of a chambermaid she was secreted on a boat, and kept the two children drugged with opiates until she feared they would never come to life. But after her arrival, under the care of a skillful physician, they survived. She had found good friends among her own people and Church two years. I found her weeping, with the two youngest in her arms, the oldest sitting on a stool at her feet. With fast-falling tears she kissed her babes. "O ma's precious darlings, how can I spare you!" I told her if her master did not come for her until it was dark enough to conceal her, arrangements were made to come for her with a close carriage, to take them out of the city to a place of safety. "I reckon you can't save us," she sobbed. I told her we would pray the Lord, who knew all her deep sorrow, to open the way for us. "Yes, I cried mightily to him to help me out o' that dark land back yonder, and it 'peared like he did bring me out; but if I had stuck closer to him I reckon he'd kep' me from this hard trial;" and fresh tears freely flowed.