front
door.

A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza.
Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child, and
sprang down the steps towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of
her just as she was disappearing down the bank; and throwing himself
from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was after her
like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment her feet to her scarce
seemed to touch the ground, and a moment brought her to the water's
edge. Right on behind they came; and, nerved with strength such as God
gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she
vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of
ice beyond. It was a desperate leap--impossible to anything but madness
and despair; and Haley, Sam, and Andy, instinctively cried out, and
lifted up their hands, as she did it.

The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked
as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild
cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;
stumbling--leaping--slipping--springing upwards again! Her shoes are
gone--her stockings cut from her feet--while blood marked every step;
but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw
the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.

"Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!" said the man, with an oath.

Eliza recognized the voice and face for a man who owned a farm not far
from her old home.

"O, Mr. Symmes!--save me--do save me--do hide me!" said Elia.

"Why, what's this?" said the man. "Why, if 'tan't Shelby's gal!"

"My child!--this boy!--he'd sold him! There is his Mas'r," said she,
pointing to the Kentucky shore. "O, Mr. Symmes, you've got a little
boy!"

"So I have," said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the
steep bank. "Besides, you're a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I
see it."

When they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused.

"I'd be glad to do something for ye," said he; "but then there's nowhar
I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go _thar_," said
he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main
street of the village. "Go thar; they're kind folks. Thar's no kind o'
danger but they'll help you,--they're up to all that sort o' thing."

"The Lord bless you!" said Eliza, earnestly.

"No 'casion, no 'casion in the world,