For one brief flash the thought crossed her mind what that would mean--arrest, trial, and afterward imprisonment. But that fleeting picture was instantly gone and in its place came the vision of the lad at her feet being carried back to scourging and slavery. As she urged the horse down the hill at a reckless pace she remembered that he was about to be sold “down south”--that land of fears and terrors which to the negroes of the border states was a doom almost as awful as was the fiery gulf which threatened the impenitent sinner. It occurred to her that the hill was the same one where she had met the slave, Andrew, on that momentous day of the previous summer. “If I can make the bottom, and get him safe on that path to the cave before they see him-- O, God, help me!” She thought of the boy’s old slave mother, waiting and trusting for his promised help to rescue her from bondage, and lashed her horse again. With a firm hand she held the lines, her eyes on the road ahead and her touch guiding the horse along the safest track. With a jerk they stopped short at the bottom of the hill and she pulled away the coverings. “Get up, quick!” she warned. “They’ve followed us, and you must hide. Climb that fence--do you see that path over there? Run down that--it will bring you to a thicket of hazel bushes. Behind them, in the hill, there is a cave. You’ll be safe there, until I or some one comes for you. But don’t stir out of it until you hear the word, ‘Canada,’ three times. They’re right behind us--run fast!” He needed no more warning, but was over the fence and speeding like a deer along the faint pathway. There was no foliage now to screen his figure and he would have to get beyond the bend in the hill, where the path dropped downward again, before he would be safe from sight. Rhoda gave one quick backward glance--they had not yet come into view. The fleeing mulatto reached the big rock, turned it, and disappeared. With a little catch in her breath she gathered up her lines, straightened the carriage robes and urged her horse forward again. There was no need of haste now, and the sooner the interview with the marshal was over the sooner he would go back and leave her free to bring the boy from his hiding place and go on her way. So she let the horse slowly climb the rise, while she heard the pursuing party clattering down the other slope. Presently they were beside her. “Miss Ware, by authority of the law, I shall have to search your buggy,” said the marshal’s voice, at the wheel. One of his men rode to the horse’s head and seized the bridle. “What for?” she asked, with well-simulated surprise.