, 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 stayed 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.

'Eliza recognised the voice and face of a man who owned a farm not far
from her old home.

"Oh, Mr Symmes!--save me--do save me--do hide me!" said Eliza.

"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. "Oh, 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," said the man. "What I've done's
of no 'count."

"And oh, surely, sir, you won't tell any one!"

"Go to thunder, gal! What do you take a feller for? In course not,"
said the man. "Come, now, go along like a likely, sensible gal, as you
are. You've arnt your liberty, and you shall have it, for all me."

'The woman folded her child to her bosom, and walked firmly and
swiftly away. The man stood and looked after her.

"Shelby, now, mebbe won't think this yer the most neighbourly thing in
the world; but what's a feller to do? If he catches one of my gals in
the same fix, he's welcome to pay back. Somehow I never could see no
kind o' critter a-strivin' and pantin', and trying to clar
theirselves, with the dogs arter 'em, and go agin 'em. Besides, I
don't see no kind of 'casion for me to be hunter and catcher for other
folks neither."

'So spoke thi