Campbell and Obadiah got into the carriage. By this time we had convinced the first trooper, that I actually was a Michigan man (for he saw for himself, that I had no woman) and we started back toward Windsor. We shortly after met another horseman following up; when he met us he turned with us. They had alarmed all of the colored people on the road and nearly every man had volunteered for duty. They told us that some men had gone on the other road, on horse back, to cut us off in case we turned that way.
I began to make up my mind that, sure enough some how or other, we had raised quite an excitement among the colored people. We were attended by quite a cortege. They seemed to be paying a good deal of attention to a couple of Michigan men. We had attendants on foot and on horse back, before and behind, and we were quietly making our way toward Windsor. If persons, who did not know us, and knew nothing of the affair or circumstance, had stood in the main street in Windsor, opposite the ferry, and seen us come in, attended by our retinue, they might have thought, that I, a Michigan farmer, had the King of the Sandwich Islands accompanied by some great Mogul, that I was their driver and that the Deputy Sheriff, of Wayne County, Michigan, was their footman.
When we came up opposite the ferry, the crowd of colored men was so great, we had to stop and give an account of ourselves. They had raised the alarm in Detroit and she had furnished her quota of colored men for the emergency. The excitement had helped the ferry business a little.
We found ourselves surrounded by a large concourse of people. I told them, that I did not know anything about the woman nor of Kentucky. Some of them wouldn't believe but what there was actually a woman in the carriage and they had to step up and look in and examine it, in order to satisfy themselves. Luckily, some of those who came across from Detroit knew me and knew that I was no Southerner.
Campbell was my main spokesman. He was a very sensible man and more than an average talker. He said: "Why gemman, I know this man well; he libs in Dearbu'n. I worked for him heaps of times, often been to his house. We're goin to Detroit wid him to see 'bout a job."
One colored man, more suspicious than the rest, crowded his way through up to the carriage, opened the door, took Obadiah by the arm and told him to get out, that he wouldn't let him go across; he said he was a young man and it was dangerous for him to go over. Obadiah said that he knew "Misser Nowlin fust rate," that he had worked for him and that he had more work for him to do and he must go over. Other men, who knew me, reasoned the case with them, and they finally concluded it was a false alarm, closed the carriage door and we were permitted to drive on to the ferry. We soon crossed back to Detroit; to what some of the colored people considered so dangerous a place for their race.
I had Campbell hold the horses while my friend, Mr. Tompkins, and I consulted together concerning Obadiah. I told my friend, that I hadn't been able to detect any guilt in Obadiah from the first to the last. I thought if he had been guilty he would have been alarmed, and have allowed himself to have been taken out of the carriage in Windsor, and would not have crossed the river with us. Mr. Tompkins had made up his mind to the same thing. T stepped back to them and said, that I had consulted with my friend and changed my mind, that I wouldn't do anything about the job then. I have no doubt, they thought the colored people had raised such an excitement it had discouraged me and cheated them out of a job. (It is seen that the job I wished done just then, was to get my watch, and I had thought that Obadiah was the one who could help me accomplish it.) I told them, some other time when I had work I would employ them, and I did employ Campbell a number of times after that. I gave them money to get them some dinner and to pay their passage back, as I had paid it over. I left them feeling first rate; they never knew the object of my visit. They must have thought that I treated them with a great deal of respect.
When I reached home at night my pocket book was a little lighter, my trip had cost me something. I told my folks that if they had made out in Canada, that I was a southern man and that I was after that woman, it would have been doubtful about my ever getting home and that it would have taken three hundred Michigan troops to have gotten us out of Windsor, dead or alive. But I do say to exonerate those colored people from all suspicion, in the affair, that, some time after, the watch was found, nicely wrapped up in a piece of cloth and in a bureau drawer, where it had been laid away carefully and forgotten.