t
seems I just nat'larly got fer ter tell yer. I done heerd thet man say
onct just whut yer did, thet a nigger wus just as much his frien' as
though he wus white--thet it wan't de skin nohow what counted, but de
heart. No, sah, I ain't feered fer ter tell yer, Massa Knox. He's got
a cabin hid way back in de bluffs, whar nobody don't go, 'cept dem who
know whar it is. I reckon he don't do nuthin' but hunt an' fish
nohow--leastways he don't raise no corn, nor truck fer ter sell. He's
a tall, lanky man, sah, sorter thin, with a long beard, an' his name
wus Amos Shrunk. I reckon maybe he's a Black Abolitionist, sah."

"Quite likely, I should say. And you could take a boat from here to
his place?"

"Sure, the darkest night yer ever see. Inter the mouth ob a crick,
'bout a hundred rods up de Illinois. Den thar's a path, a sorter path,
whut goes ter de cabin; but most genir'ly he's down thar waitin' et
night. Yer see dey never sure knows when som' nigger is goin' fer ter
git away--only mostly it's at night."

This knowledge greatly simplified matters. If there was already in
operation an organized scheme by means of which fugitives from this
side of the great river were taken through to Canada, protected and
assisted along the way by the friends of freedom, then all we would be
required to do in this case would be to safely convey the unfortunate
Rene and her mother in Pete's boat up the river, and there turn them
over to the care of this Amos Shrunk. Undoubtedly he could be trusted
to see to it that they were promptly forwarded to others, fanatics like
himself, who would swiftly pass them along at night across the Illinois
prairies, until beyond all danger of pursuit. Hundreds, no doubt, had
traveled this route, and, once these two were in Shrunk's care our
responsibility would be over with. It was to me a vast relief to
realize this. The distance to the mouth of the Illinois could not be
far, surely not to exceed fifty miles as the river ran. It ought not
to prove difficult to baffle Kirby for that short distance, and then we
would be free to return, and no one could prove any charge against us.
Indeed it was my purpose to immediately proceed down the river on my
furlough, and probably it would never so much as be suspected that the
negro had been away. Ever since my boyhood I had listened to stories
concerning the operation of Underground Railroads by means of which
slaves were assisted to freedom, and n