hose men." With a
smile as of curiosity I looked my slim informant over once more. I had
never seen slavery so flattered yet so condemned.

All at once I said in my heart: "You, my lad, I'll help to escape!"
But when I looked again at the absurd Robelia I saw I must help both
alike.

"Euonymus, did you ever drive a lady's coach?"

"Me? No'm, I never drove no lady's coach."

"Well, boy, I'm travelling--in my own outfit."

"Yass'm."

"But I hire a new driver and span at each town and send the others
back."

"Yass'm," said Euonymus. Robelia came nearer.

"My coach is now at a livery-stable in town, and I want a driver and a
lady's maid."

"Yass'm."

"I'd prefer free colored people. They could come with me as far as
they pleased, and I shouldn't be responsible for their return."

"Yass'm," said Euonymus, edging away from Robelia's nudge.

"Now, Euonymus, I judge by your being out here in the woods this time
of day, idle, that you're both free, you and your sister, h'm?"

"Ro'--Robelia an' me? Eh, ye'--yass'm, as you may say, in a manneh,
yass'm."

"She is your sister, is she not?"

"Yass'm," clapped in Robelia, with a happy grin, and Euonymus quietly
added:

"Us full sisteh an' brotheh--in a manneh."

"Umh'm. Could you drive my coach, Euonymus?"

"What, me, mist'ess? Why, eh, o' co'se I kin drive _some_, but--" The
soft, honest eyes, seeking Robelia's, betrayed a mental conflict. I
guessed there were more than two runaways, and that Euonymus was
debating whether for Robelia's sake to go with me and leave the others
behind, or not.

"You kin drive de coach," blurted the one-ideaed Robelia. "You knows
you kin."

"No, mi'ss, takin' all roads as dey come I ain't no ways fitt'n'; no'm."

"Well, daddy's fitt'n'!" said the sun-bonnet.

Euonymus flinched, yet smilingly said:

"Yass, da's so, but I ain't daddy, no mo'n you is."

"Well, us kin go fetch him--in th'ee shakes."

Euonymus flinched again, yet showed generalship. "Yass'm, us kin go ax
daddy."

I smiled. "Let Robelia go and you stay here."

Robelia waited on tiptoe. "Go fetch him," murmured Euonymus, "an' make
has'e."

"Wait! You're a good boy, Euonymus, ain't you?"

"I cayn't say dat, mi'ss; but I'm glad ef you thinks so."

"Y' is good!" said Robelia. "You knows you is!"

"Never mind," I said; "do you belong to--Zion?"

The dark face grew radiant. "Yass'm, I does!"

"Euonymus, how many more of you-all are there