It was some hours later and the house was dark, save for a light in Dr. Ware’s office, when Rhoda, watching at her bedroom window, discerned some shapes in the darkness hurrying up the hill. As they emerged into the dim circle of light from the lantern at their east gate, she saw that it was Chad Wallace and his little band of runaway slaves. Softly she ran downstairs to admit them into the office. Her father was there, but asleep on the lounge. With the utmost caution, walking on tiptoe and speaking only in whispers, she and Lizzie brought into the office their supper of bread and meat and hot coffee and in half an hour they were ready to start again upon their way. As they stole silently out of the house Dr. Ware bundled three of them into his carriage, which Jim had ready at the gate, and the other three were quickly concealed in the peddler’s wagon. With even less of noise than was usually occasioned by the physician’s response to a night call, the party set forth on its journey to the next station. Hurriedly extinguishing the lights and locking the doors, Rhoda stole back to her room and leaning from her window listened to the distant sound of wheels for assurance that, so far, all was well. Her heart beat high, as it always did after they had passed successfully through one of these night episodes. For she knew the never-ceasing danger that the fugitive might have been followed and trailed to their house. All along the southern border of the state there were numbers of men, from both sides of the river, who spent most of their time hunting runaway slaves, for the sake of the rewards for their capture. She and her father were well aware that their succoring of fugitives might be interrupted at any moment by the entrance of the United States marshal and his band of armed men, with consequent arrest, trial, and imprisonment. The words that the peddler had sung were running insistently through her brain and as she lighted her candle she softly hummed: “Hold up its fire-wrought language that whoso reads may feel His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel.” “Yes, that’s just it,” she nodded to her reflection in the mirror, as she placed her hand against her heart. “That’s just how it makes me feel whenever I think of any of the horrible things that slavery means.”