“You’ve beat us this time, young lady,” he responded angrily, “but we know what your father is up to, and you with him, and we’ll get you yet.”
She turned upon him with dignity. “May I ask, Mr. Hanscomb, that you will finish your examination of this little buggy where there is scarcely room for one, as soon as possible, so that I can go on. I am on an errand for my father, and I would like to finish it and get home before dark. Perhaps you would like to look under the horse’s collar and split open the whip-stock.”
The marshal flushed with annoyance. “All right. You can go on now. But you’d better be careful about taking in any more niggers.”
She drove slowly on up the hill and they brought their horses’ heads together for a conference. She was trembling with anxiety lest it might occur to them to search the woodland on the west of the road, and she wanted to know what they were going to do before she would have to pass out of sight down the other side of the hill. To gain time she dropped her whip, and jumped out to get it. Then she adjusted a buckle in the harness and examined a thill strap. A stolen glance let her see that they were starting back toward the town.
But now a new anxiety filled her. Did they know of the cave? Would they think of it as a possible hiding place? The cave was such a little one,—it was of no interest to any one but children—perhaps they had never heard of it, or had forgotten it if they had. She longed to look around and see if they stopped, but she feared to show interest in their movements, lest she might renew their suspicions. Had the boy left footprints as he ran from the buggy to the fence? She tried to remember whether the ground there was hard or muddy, but could recall nothing. In an agony of apprehension she reached the top of the hill and started down the descent.
“I must know, whatever happens,” she presently said to herself. Stopping the horse she sprang out and ran back a little way, to where her eyes could command the opposite hill. The horsemen were disappearing over its crest. Her knees were shaking as she hurried back to the buggy, but she pulled herself together and considered what would be the best plan to get the fugitive out of the cave and on to the next station. For she feared to go back openly now, lest some member of the marshal’s party might return. A little farther on, she remembered, was a cross way and striking off from this, a short distance to the westward, an old wood road which ended near the cave. “It used to be there,” she thought anxiously, “but I haven’t been down it since—oh, I don’t know when! I’ll have to take chances on its being there yet.”
But on the cross road she met farmer Gilbertson, in a big, deep-bedded wagon filled with a load of loose hay. She told him of her narrow escape.
“You better drive in and get him in your little buggy,” he advised, “and I’ll wait out here and take him home with me, under the hay. It’ll be safe enough—this road ain’t traveled much.”
It was not long until Rhoda was driving homeward again, deep joy in her heart that the fugitive had escaped such imminent danger, but wondering much how the marshal had discovered the secret of their woodshed.