“Then I’ll help you. I know where you can hide.” He assisted her to dismount and she gathered up her long riding skirt and began to climb the rail fence. “There’s a cave over here a little ways,” she went on. “I haven’t been there for years, but I think I can find it. Yes, here’s the path.” “We must hurry,” he cautioned. “They’re coming after me, and they’re not far behind. If they turn off on that other road back there--I’ll be safe--this time.” She led the way and they walked on rapidly through the straggling bushes and timber. The hill was steeper here and the path sidled and zigzagged toward its summit, for some distance in view of the road. Halfway up the hillside it made a sharp turn around a huge boulder and plunged into a thicker growth of shrubs and young trees. As the man, several paces in the rear, reached this point he cast a quick glance at the road and saw a horseman come into view across the top of the rise. He sprang forward, exclaiming in a shrill whisper, “Hurry! My master is coming! I saw him cross the hill!” She drew her skirts higher and broke into a run. “Did he see you?” she threw back at him, and her swift glance caught sight of a pistol in his hand. “I don’t know. Show me the cave, and then you must get out of the way!” “You won’t shoot him?” she demanded, turning sharply round. “I will if I have to. I’m not going back into slavery!” was his answer in a dogged voice. [Illustration: “‘You won’t shoot him?’ she demanded, turning sharply around.”] They heard the neigh of a horse, over in the road, and an answering call from Rhoda’s mare, which she had left tied to the fence. “Are we nearly there?” asked the mulatto. The path sloped downward again and she sped onward, her thoughts flashing, lightning like, across her mind. If the slaves really did not want freedom, if they were happy and contented in slavery, why was this man taking such desperate chances? Perhaps he was fleeing from a master as cruel as Uncle Tom’s. She would ask him--at last she could find out the truth from one of those who alone knew what was the truth. Rhoda stopped beside a thick tangle of hazel bushes that grew against the face of a sharp rise of the hill. “Here it is,” she said. “Go around to the other side of this thicket and between the bushes and the hill just a little ways in, you’ll see the opening into the cave. It’s perfectly safe--only children ever go there.” “Thank you, miss, thank you!” he breathed as he hurried past her. Then he paused an instant and half turned toward her again. “You’d better get out of harm’s way, quick! If Jeff Delavan did see me just now he won’t stop till he finds me, if he has to burn the woods down to do it! And I won’t be taken!” He rushed on around the thicket and did not see how she suddenly stiffened and the color faded from her face, leaving it white to the lips. “Jeff Delavan!” she repeated. “Is he your master?”