“I’ve not heard the word nigger since I left home, two days ago, until now.”
“Where are you from?”
“Salem, and like enough you’ll find him there, for they say them Bonsalls keeps a power of runaways.”
“Well, we’re going up to see. Good day, sir.”
“Good day, gentleman,” and each party pursued its way.
That night Pennock stayed at the “Old Buckeye House,” New Lisbon, the wagon was run into the barn, and at a proper hour the “soft bar” was taken out and placed in the hay-mow, “to prevent rust,” as the blacksmith facetiously remarked to his friend Boniface. The next day on arriving home, he learned his interlocutors had preceded him some hours, and were registered at one of the taverns as cattle buyers or drovers rather, where young Coppoc had caught a glimpse of them, and informed his friends of their real character.
On the morrow the pseudo dealers called on a neighboring farmer and desired to be introduced among the best stock raisers of the vicinity.
“Thee had better be leaving these parts, gentlemen,” said the honest Quaker, to whom the appeal was made. “If thee knows when thee is well off, for thy errand is understood, and thee will have the Coppocs and the Bonsalls down on thee in an hour, and I could not assure thy lives for a moment when they come.”
There was no parley, but two horses were headed southward, and none too soon, for in a short time half a dozen young men armed to the teeth, rode up and inquired for the strangers. When informed of their departure they started in pursuit. Then began one of the most exciting races ever witnessed in Columbian county. The pursued had smelled mischief in the air, and away they flew, and after them the pursuers, dashing over hill and across valley, occasionally catching glimpses of each other, until the whole distance to the Ohio was passed. Reaching Gardiner’s Ferry, at East Liverpool, the Southerners put their jaded horses aboard the boat and were soon on the sacred soil of Virginia. When Gardiner returned the other party was in waiting, but reluctantly took his advice to remain on the soil of their native state.