Once upon the public highway the little party struck out briskly for the railroad upon which they turned their faces towards Baltimore, and following their instructions were making fine progress, when, about midnight, as they were passing around a village the heavens became suddenly overcast with clouds, and for an hour or more they wandered in uncertainty. A halt being called, a lively discussion based upon five different opinions arose, and how it might have terminated no one can tell had not the heavens just then cleared up, enabling Harry, who was both conductor to and astronomer for the train, to get their bearings from “de ol’ norf.” So much time had thus been lost that daybreak was just beginning to tinge the east when the mystical word “Ben” fell from the lips of a man standing upon the track, whom they at once followed for some distance into a corn-field, where he removed several bundles from a stack of corn-fodder, and the two women entered a “dodger” apartment, whilst the men were similarly secreted a little farther on. A thirty mile walk had given them a good appetite for the bountiful breakfast provided, after partaking of which they lay down and slept soundly, whilst “Old Ben,” a free negro who had been furnished the means to rent and till this field and arrange it as a “way station,” kept constant vigil and obliterated their tracks by husking corn and carefully drawing the stocks over them. III. Morning came in the city, and soon the absence of the servants from their employers was reported at the plantation, where the non-appearance of Jo had already caused the Colonel to give his daughter a special cursing for “letting that d—d nigger, Jo, have a pass.” Hounds and hunters were at once called into requisition, but all in vain. All about the country was scoured and searched, but Uncle Ben’s field was so public and he so honest, that no one thought of troubling it, or him. Night came, and under cover of the first hour of darkness the two women were taken in charge by a man who led them rapidly along the railroad track till they came to a road where a carriage received them and they were driven rapidly into the city of Baltimore and there carefully secreted. Scarcely had they departed when a pack of hounds came into the field, and, after scenting around for some time, struck their track and were off in pursuit with such a wild scream as to waken the men from their quiet slumber.