"Where is Mason?" they demanded.
"Find out," was the Captain's only answer, as he drove quietly along, chuckling to himself over the success of his strategy; while the slave-hunters worked themselves into a passion over a fruitless search of Mr. Russell's innocent premises.
Early one morning a few days afterward, as Capt. Dobbins was on the bank of the lake, he saw a vessel round the point of the Peninsula, sail up the channel, and cast anchor in Misery Bay, then, and for many years afterwards, a favorite anchorage for wind-bound vessels. Soon a yawl was seen to put off for the shore with the master of the vessel aboard. Capt. Dobbins contrived to see him during the day, and was delighted to find him an old and formerly intimate shipmate. The ship-master heartily entered into the Captain's plans, and it was agreed to put Mason aboard of the vessel at two o'clock the next morning.
At the time of which we write, the steamer docks and lumber-yards which later were built along the shore at that point, were yet undreamed of, and the waters of the bay broke unhindered at the foot of the high bank on which stood Mrs. Kellogg's house, where Mason was hid. It would not do openly to borrow a boat, and Capt. Dobbins had no small difficulty in getting a craft for the conveyance of his protégé to the vessel. At last, late at night, a little, leaky old skiff was temporarily confiscated. By this time a strong breeze had sprung up, and it was difficult to approach the shore. A tree had fallen over the bank with its top in the water, and the Captain found precarious anchorage for his leaky tub by clinging to its branches. With a cry like the call of the whip-poor-will the runaway was summoned. In his hurry to get down the bank he slipped and fell headlong into the fallen treetop; while a small avalanche of stones and earth came crashing after and nearly swamped the boat. When the boat had been lightened of its unexpected cargo, the voyage across the bay began. The poor darky, however, was no sooner sure that his neck was not broken by the tumble, than he was nearly dead with the fear of drowning. Their boat, a little skiff just big enough for one person, leaked like a sieve, and soon became water-logged in the seaway. Mason's hat was a stiff "plug," a former gift of charity. It had suffered sorely by the plunge down the bank, but its ruin was made complete by the Captain ordering its owner to fall to and bail out the boat with it. The brim soon vanished, but the upper part did very well as a bucket; and the owner consoled himself that in thus sacrificing his hat he saved his life. It was a close call for safety. The Captain tugged away at the oars as never before, and the shivering negro scooped away for dear life to keep the boat afloat. In after years Capt. Dobbins experienced shipwreck more than once, but he used to say that never had he been in greater peril than when making that memorable trip across Presque Isle Bay in the wild darkness and storm of midnight. The vessel was at length reached. She was loaded with staves, and a great hole was made in the deck load, within which Mason was snugly stowed away, while the staves were piled over him again. Capt. Dobbins reached the mainland in safety before daylight, and during the morning had the satisfaction of seeing the wind haul around off land, when the vessel weighed anchor and sailed away.
Knowing that pursuit was impossible (there were no steam tugs on the bay in those days), Capt. Dobbins quietly told the officer that he was tired of being watched, and that if he would come along, he would show him where Mason was. The Captain had notified some of his friends, and when the bank of the lake was reached, a crowd had gathered, for the affair had created quite a stir in the village.
"Do you see that sail?" said the Captain, pointing to the retreating vessel.
"Well?" was the impatient answer.
"Mason is aboard of her," was the quiet reply. The befooled magistrate of the law, who had taken great care to bring handcuffs for his expected prisoner, acknowledged himself beaten; while the "nigger-chasers" were glad to sneak off, followed by the shouts and jeers of the crowd. "Pretty well done—for a Democrat," said Mr. Russell to the Captain a few days afterwards. "After your conversion to our principles you will make a good Abolitionist."
Some years after the event above narrated, as Capt. Dobbins[66] was in the cabin of his vessel as she lay at Buffalo, a respectably-dressed black man was shown into the cabin. It was Mason, who had come to repay his benefactor with thanks and even with proffered money. He had settled somewhere back of Kingston, Ontario, on land which the Canadian Government at that time gave to actual settlers. He had married an amiable woman, and was prosperous and happy.