Towser Finds the Fugitives—Towser Brings Uncle Moses—Mr. Izzard and His Yankee Overseer, Jake Johnson—Tom is Pulled Down the Chimney—How Uncle Moses Choked the Overseer—The Flight of the Four.

They slept until late in the afternoon.

Then Morris woke up with a yell. A dog's cold nose was thrusting itself against his cheek. He thought his master's bloodhounds were upon him and that the whipping-post was the least he had to fear. As Tom, startled from sound sleep by the negro's scream of terror, sprang to his feet, he saw Morris crouching upon the ground, babbling "Sabe me, good Lord, sabe old Morris!" The dog, a big black-and-yellow mongrel, a very distant cousin of the bloodhound the scared darkey imagined him to be, was looking with a grieved surprise at the cowering man. He was a most good-natured beast, accustomed to few caresses and many kicks, and he had never before seen a man who was afraid of him. As he turned to Tom, he saw a boy who wasn't afraid of him. Tom, who had always been loved by dogs and children, smiled at the big yellow mongrel, said "Come here, old fellow," and in an instant had the great hound licking his hand and looking up to him with the brown-yellow eyes full of a dog's faith and a dog's fidelity. These are great qualities. A cynic once said: "The more I see of men the more I like dogs." That cynic probably got from men what he gave to them. But still it is true that the unfaltering faith of a dog and a child, once their confidence has been won, is a rare and a precious thing. Tom patted his new friend's head. The big tail wagged with joy. The hound looked reproachfully at Morris, as much as to say: "See how you misunderstood me; I want to be friends: but here"—he turned and looked at the boy who was smiling at him—"here is my best friend."

He stayed with them an hour, contented and happy, humbly grateful for a tiny piece of meat they gave him. Then, as dark drew near, he became uneasy. Two or three times he started as if to leave them, turned to see whether they were following him, looked beseechingly at them, barked gently, put his big paw on Tom's arm and pulled at him. Evidently he wanted them to come with him, but this they did not dare to do.

"Ef we lets him go, he'll bring his folkses here," Morris whispered.

"I suppose we must tie him up," Tom reluctantly assented. "I hate to treat him that way, for he's a good dog. But if we leave him tied and push off in the boat, he'll howl after a while and his master will find him. Take a bit of fishing-line and tie him."

Morris turned towards the hidden boat, but the hound, as if aware of what they had said, suddenly started for his hidden home and vanished into the underbrush before Tom could catch hold of him. When Tom called, he stopped once and looked back, but he did not come back. He shouldered his way into the bushes and trotted off, with that amusing air of being in a hurry to keep a most important appointment which all dogs sometimes show. And as he started, Morris appeared again, with a shrill whisper: "De boat's dun sunk hisself."

Tom ran to the bank of the creek. The news was too true. The boat had sunk. The rotten caulking had dropped from one of the rotten seams. The bow, tied to a tree in the canebrake, was high in air. The stern was under five feet of water. The oars had floated away. The fishing-pole was afloat, held to the old craft by the hook-and-line, which had caught in the sunken seat. What were they to do? They felt as a Western trapper used to feel, when he had lost his horse and saw himself compelled to make his perilous way on foot through a country swarming with savage foes. What to do?

"We must raise the boat, Morris, get her on shore, turn her over, caulk her with something, make some paddles somehow and get off."

They did, by great effort and with much more noise than they liked to make, drag the crazy old craft upon the bank of the creek. They turned her bottom-side up. The negro plucked down a long, waving mass of Spanish moss from a cypress that grew in the swampy soil. Children in the South call this Spanish moss "old men's gray beards." Each long drift of it looks as if it might have grown on the chin of an aged giant. They were pressing it into the gaping seam with feverish haste, listening the while for any sign of that dreaded coming of the big hound's "folkses." The short twilight of Southern skies ended. A deep curtain of darkness fell upon them. And through it they heard the nearby patter of the dog's paws and the shuffling footfalls of a man. And they saw the gleam of a lantern.

"We'se diskivered, Massa Tom," old Morris whispered, "we'se diskivered."

As he spoke, he slipped over the bank into the creek and lay in much his attitude when Tom had first "diskivered" him, except that the water covered all of him except mouth and nose and eyes. Tom bent down to him.

"Hush," he said, "keep still. There's only one man coming. The dog's all right. I'll meet the man. You stay here."

Then he stepped into a circle of light cast by the lantern upon a mass of underbrush and said, with a cheerful confidence he did not feel:

"Howdy, neighbor?"

The big yellow dog was fawning at his feet in a second. A quavering old voice came from behind the light of the lantern.

"Howdy, Massa," it said. "Is I intrudin' on you?"

An old, old negro shambled up to him, the lantern in one hand, a ragged hat in another. He bowed his crown of white kinky hair respectfully before the white boy. There was no enemy to be feared here. The boy's heart bounded with relief and he laughed as he answered:

"No, Uncle, you're not intruding. I'm glad to see you. I'm sure you'll help us. Come here, Morris."

Morris scrambled up the bank, the wettest man in the world. His eyeballs shone as he neared them. They shone still more as he stood before the old negro, held out his hand, and said:

"Unk' Moses, I'se po'erful glad to meet up wid you."

Uncle Moses almost dropped his rude lantern in his surprise.

"Well, ef it ain't Massa Pinckney's Morris! Howdy, Morris? How cum so as you-uns is here, a-hidin'? I know'd de way dat ar Towser wuz a-actin' when he dun cum home dat dere wuz sum-un in de bush out hyar, but I neber s'picioned t'wuz you, Morris. Is you dun run away?"

The situation was soon explained. Uncle Moses had already become familiar with it. Hunted men, both white and black, were no novelty to him by that time. He had helped many of them on their scared way. Too old to work, he lived alone in a little cabin on the outskirts of his owner's plantation. He tilled a tiny plot of vegetables when "de rumatiz" permitted and with these and some rations from "de big house" he eked out a scanty living. This owner's self-respect had not prevented his working Moses through all a long life, with no payment except food and lodging, and behind these always the shadow of the whip. But the slave's self-respect required him to work for the hand that fed him, so long as failing strength permitted. All he could do now was to scare crows from the cornfield, but that he could do well, for his one suit of the ragged remains of what had been several other people's clothes made him a perfect scarecrow. Besides his vegetables, he had some chickens, a sacred possession. "Old Unk' Mose" was known and respected through all the countryside. No chicken-thief ever came to his cabin. The kind old patriarch was reaping the reward of a kind long life. He dwelt in peace.

He took Tom and Morris to the lonely cabin and treated them there with a royal hospitality. Despite his protests, Tom was obliged to take the one bed. Unk' Mose and Morris slept upon the floor. First, they had a mighty dinner. Two of Moses's fattest chickens and everything Moses had in the way of other food filled their starved stomachs. Then to sleep. The last thing Tom heard that night was the swish of Towser's mighty tail upon the earthen floor as the dog lay beside his cot. The last thing of which he was conscious was Towser's gently licking the hand that hung down from the cot.

The next day they toiled with such feeble help as Moses could give them upon their leaky boat. They put it in fair shape and then, with a rusty ax which was one of Unk' Mose's most precious possessions, they fashioned a couple of rough oars. Then they spent a day trying to persuade Moses to seek freedom with them. It was in vain.

"I'se too old, Massa Tom," said Uncle Moses. "Dey wuz timeses when I dun thought all de days and dun prayed all de nights dat freedum'd cum along or dat I cud go to freedum. It's too late nowadays. Unk' Mose mus' jes' sot hyar, a-waitin'. P'raps, ef I keeps a-helpin' udder folkses to find deir freedum, p'raps sum day, 'fore I'se troo' a-waitin', de angel ob de Lawd'll cum a-walkin' up to my do' and he'll be a-holdin' by de han' ob a great big udder angel 'n de udder angel he'll dun smile at me and say: 'Unk' Moses, I'se Freedum 'n I'se cum to you.' Den I'll say: 'Thank de good Lawd,' and I'll be so happy I guess I'll jes' die 'n go to de great White Throne, whar ebberybody's free."

Late that afternoon when they had had to give up the hope of taking Uncle Mose with them, they were making a bundle of the food he had given them. It was a big bundle. He would have slaughtered his last chicken for them, had they permitted it. Suddenly there came the sound of a long, shrill whistle. Uncle Moses, tying up the bundle on his knees, forgot "de rumatiz" and almost sprang to his feet.

"Lawd-a-massy, dat's de oberseer! He's dun callin' de hands to de quarters." The quarters were the slave-quarters which always clustered at a respectful distance in the rear of a planter's home. "Dat ar oberseer mebbe'll cum hyar. You folkses mus' hide."

The whistle had sounded dangerously near. As they looked out of the one door that gave light to the slave's cabin, they saw three horsemen trotting towards it, two white men and a negro. They were Moses's master, the dreaded overseer, and a groom. It was impossible to run across the small cleared space about the cabin and seek the woods without being seen. But where could they hide in a one-roomed hut?

"De chimbley, quick, de chimbley," gasped Uncle Mose.

A big chimney, full of the soot of many years of wood-fires on the broad hearth below, filled half one side of the room. Tom and Morris rushed to it, climbed up the rough stone sides, found a precarious footing just above the fireplace, and waited. Fortunately the fire upon which the food for the journey had been cooked had almost died down. A little smoke floated up the wide opening. The smoke and the soot tickled the boy's nostrils until it seemed to him that he must sneeze. A sneeze might mean death. With a mighty effort he kept still for what seemed to him an hour. It was really about five minutes.

Mr. Izzard, owner of Uncle Moses and of some hundreds of other black men, Jake Johnson, his overseer, a renegade Yankee, with a face that told of the cruel soul within him, trotted up to the door, the black groom a few yards behind them. Uncle Moses had thrust the bundle of food far back under the bed. He stood respectfully in his doorway, bowing to the ground. Towser cowered beside him. Towser had felt more than once the sting of the long whip Jake Johnson carried. He feared and he hated the overseer.

"Howdy, Massa Izzard." said Moses. "Howdy, Mista Johnsing. Will you-uns light down 'n cum in?"

"Howdy, Uncle Moses?" Mr. Izzard replied. He was a tall, pale, well-born, well-bred, well-educated man, as kind a man as ever held his fellowmen in slavery, and as sure that he was justified in doing so by the laws of both God and man as the German emperor was that he ruled a subject people by divine right. "No, we won't light down. We just came to say howdy. Are you getting on all right? If you want anything, come up to the big house and ask for it."

He smiled and the overseer scowled upon the old negro as he stammered a few words of thanks. Suddenly the overseer asked:

"Have you seen anything of Mr. Pinckney's Morris, Mose?"

"No, sah, Mista Johnsing, sah, I ain't seen hide nor har ob Morris. Has dat fool nigger runned away?"

Johnson looked at him sharply.

"If I thought you knew already he had run away," said he, "I'd"—he cracked his whip in the air to show what he would have done.

Moses and Towser cowered. But Mr. Izzard told Johnson to stop frightening "the best darkey on the place" and they rode away. Mose dropped upon his one chair and was just about to give fervent thanks for the escape from detection, when Johnson, who had turned a short distance away and had galloped back, flung himself off his horse at the door and strode into the dusky hut.

"I b'lieve you know something about that Morris," he roared at the shrinking old negro. "You looked guilty. Tell me what you know or I'll thrash you within an inch of your black life." He cracked his dreaded whip again.

"I dun know nothin' 'bout him, Mista Johnsing," Moses pleaded.

Alas, at that moment, smoke and soot proved too much for the overtried nostrils of Tom. He sneezed with the vigor of a sneeze long held back. His "at-choo! at-choo!" sounded down the chimney like a chorus of bassoons. Johnson was across the room in a bound. He knelt upon the hearth, groped up the chimney, caught the boy by the ankle and pulled him down. The soot had made a negro of Tom. The overseer was sure he had caught the fleeing Morris.

At that terrible moment, when Johnson's throat was swelling for a yell of triumph that would surely have brought Mr. Izzard back to the hut, Uncle Moses cast the traditions of a life of servile fear of the white man behind him. Never had he dreamed of laying a finger on one of his owner's race, even in those long-ago days when stout thews and muscles made him fit to fight. Now, in trembling old age, the truth of the poet's saying,

put spirit for a second into his old heart. He knew the danger that lay in that yell. He meant to stop it, cost him what it might. Johnson was still on his knees in the ashes, still clutching Tom's ankle, the boy still sprawling on the hearth, half-dazed with the shock of discovery and of his fall, when Uncle Moses's withered old body hurled itself upon the overseer's broad back and his feeble fingers clutched the man's windpipe and choked him into a second's silence. That second was enough. Tom sprang to his feet and sprang at his foe like a wildcat, and good old Towser, rejoicing in the vengeance that beckoned to him, sunk his teeth in Johnson's shoulder and tore him down from the back while Tom struck his strongest just below the overseer's chin and knocked him out for the time being. Before he came to, he had been lashed hand-and-foot into a long bundle, had been effectually gagged with his own whip, had been blindfolded and had been rolled beneath the bed, from under which the food had been hurriedly withdrawn. Meanwhile Morris had neither been seen nor heard. Tom called up the chimney to him to come down.

"I kain't, Massa Tom," said a stifled voice. It had never occurred to Morris to slip down and help in the fight he heard going on below. His one thought had been to escape himself. So he had climbed still higher up the chimney and in his frantic haste he had so wedged himself into it that it took Tom an hour to pull him down. It was a battered, bruised, and bleeding negro who finally appeared. That was a very long hour. Mr. Izzard might return in search of his overseer at any moment. The overseer himself must be conscious by this time. His ears must have told him much. Tom whispered to Morris and Moses to say nothing. His anxious gesture toward the bed beneath which Johnson lay frightened both negroes into scared silence. Fortunately for them the overseer's ears had told him nothing. Towser's teeth had drawn so much blood—the mighty hound had been pried off his foe with difficulty—that the man lay in a faint until the four fugitives had fled. For there were four fugitives now. Neither Moses nor Towser could stay to face the coming wrath. The rest of Moses's chickens were killed, the rest of his vegetables gathered. When darkness fell, the old flat-boat, laden until she had a scant two inches of free-board above the water, was slipping down the river again. Uncle Moses was no longer "a-waitin' fer freedum." He was going in search of the freedom he had so long craved. He and his fellows had two clear days in which to get away without pursuit, for Johnson lay in his dark prison beneath the bed for fortyeight hours before he was found. One of the ropes used to bind him had caught upon an old nail in the wall. He was too weak to tear it away and so could not even roll himself to the outer air. On the second day of his unexplained absence, Mr. Izzard had sent all the negroes in search of him and had offered a reward for his finding. The discovery of his horse in a distant part of the plantation had concentrated the search there. The darkies who finally got the reward did not rejoice much in it, for in finding the overseer, they knew they were finding a cruel taskmaster and his cruel whip. But the story of his discomfiture by three negroes, for he had never known that Tom's sooty face was really white, soon spread through the countryside. He became a neighborhood joke and in his wrath at being made a butt he resigned as Mr. Izzard's overseer. Leaving this place deprived him of his immunity from conscription. He was promptly seized by the nearest Confederate officer and impressed into the army. The Izzard negroes had the infinite joy of seeing their hated ex-overseer marched off under guard to a Confederate camp, to serve as a private soldier.

Tom was destined to see Jake Johnson again.

Two nights they rowed down the river, almost without a word, afraid to speak lest someone in the infrequent houses and still more infrequent villages along the banks should hear them. Wise old Towser knew enough not to bark when men about him kept so still. He lay always where with nose or paw or tail he could touch Tom. The latter was the commander of the expedition and Towser felt it and became his abject slave accordingly. At the close of the second night they had reached the Tennessee River. By day they camped upon shore in some hidden place, first craftily secreting the boat amid rushes and reeds. From their second hiding-place, they saw about noon a Confederate gunboat, a small stern-wheel steamboat, with cotton-bales at her bow and stern screening her two guns. Though she was making all possible speed up the current, she moved but slowly. Her decks were thick with excited men. A babble of voices reached the fugitives, peering at her behind a mass of bushes. The few words that could be made out told them nothing. The sight of her, however, warned them that a new danger might await them on the traveled waters of the Tennessee. Their hearts would have beat higher, had they known that General Mitchell had pushed south from Huntsville and that Union forces were then encamped in strength upon the river, not many miles below where they were cowering. The Confederate gunboat had been steaming upstream to escape capture.

When darkness came, they embarked again upon what proved to be the last chapter in the history of the old flat-boat. The next morning, caught in an eddy at the mouth of a small, swift tributary of the Tennessee, she whirled about, the Spanish moss dropped out of her rotten seams, she filled and sank. She dropped so swiftly beneath them that before they realized their danger they were all floundering in water over their heads. Tom could swim like a fish. That is one of the first things a boy should learn to do. To his delight, he found Uncle Moses was also surprisingly at home in the water, considering his years. Towser accepted the situation as something he did not understand, but which was doubtless entirely all right, as his lord and master, Tom, was in the water too. Morris, however, could not swim a stroke and saw only certain death before him. He gave a yell of terror as he went under. That yell came near costing them dear. As he rose to the surface, Tom on one side and Uncle Mose on the other, acting under Tom's instructions, edged a shoulder under him, and started to swim to shore with him. Again he yelled. This time Moses lost patience.

"Shet up, you fool nigger. You sho'ly needs to be 'mersed."

With this whispered menace, he reached up one hand and ducked Morris's head quite under water. That stopped all further sound from him. And by this time their feet had touched bottom. They waded ashore, with Towser wagging a triumphant tail, shaking himself and sending showers of spray over them. There they stood, wet as water-rats, with nothing in the world except the dripping clothes they wore. And there was no hiding-place near. For half a mile on either side of them a cleared field lay open to the day and the day was upon them. They had tempted Fate by rowing on too long after the first signs of dawn. Fate had turned the trump upon them. The sun rolled up above the eastern horizon at their back. It showed them, not half a mile away, a plantation house. It showed them a swarm of field-hands coming to the day's toil. It showed them a mounted overseer, only a few hundred feet away, riding up to the flat range of the field from a ravine that had hidden him. He had heard Morris's yells. He saw the three and rode furiously at them, calling out:

"What are you niggers doin' here?"

Tom stepped forward to meet him. His two companions were useless in an emergency like this. They cowered back and were dumb. Towser strode ahead beside Tom and barked. The overseer pulled up short. He saw he was dealing with a white man, or rather with a white boy. The circumstances were suspicious. Who were these three dripping ragamuffins? But since one of them was white, the man's tone changed and he modified his question.

"Who are ye? And what are ye doin' here?"

"I am on my way to Vicksburg," Tom answered, "by the river. My boat sunk just off shore here and we swam ashore. Can you give me another boat?"

"I mout 'n I moutn't."

"I am carrying dispatches," said Tom, sternly. "You will delay me at your peril. I shall take one of those boats, whether you consent or not."

With this he pointed at the most encouraging thing the sunrise had shown him. This was a line of three boats fastened to a wooden landing-place by the river.

"I b'lieve you're a Yankee," said the horseman, "and these are runaway niggers. You and they must come up to the big house with me. If you're all right, we'll send you on your way. If you're not, well, we know what to do with Yanks and runaway niggers! March!"

He slipped his hand behind him, as if to draw a pistol. Tom was already making the same gesture. Neither of them had a pistol. Tom's had gone to the bottom. It was pure bluff on both sides. And in a moment, seeing this and being Americans, both laughed. But none the less the overseer demanded that they should go to the big house. Tom, protesting, but apparently half-yielding, edged along until he was near the landing-platform. Then, shouting "Come on, boys!" he ran to it, the frightened negroes following at his heels and Towser running ahead. He hustled them into the boat at the eastern end of the pier, jumped in himself, jerked the rope off the wooden peg that insecurely held it, and pushed off. The overseer, angrily protesting, stood a moment watching his prey escape and then galloped like mad for the big house, shouting "Yanks! spies!! thieves!!! Yanks!!!!" He was met halfway by half a dozen men in Confederate gray, roused by his yells. They were officers who had spent the night at the hospitable house, had breakfasted at daybreak, and were just about to mount for their day's march when the overseer gave the alarm. It was lucky for the fugitives that officers do not carry anything bigger than pistols. A fusillade of revolver-bullets all fell short of the fleeing mark. Tom and Morris were pulling an oar apiece—they had found but two in the boat—with a desperate energy. But it was unlucky for the fugitives that they had not thought to steal or to scuttle the other two boats. This was Tom's fault, for he was captain.

"I'll know better next time," said Tom to himself ruefully, as he saw three men spring into each boat for the pursuit. "I'll know better next time—if there ever is a next time."

It did not seem likely that there would be a next time. One of the pursuing boats fell behind, to be sure. In it, too, there were but two oars and the men who plied them could not match the black man and the white boy who rowed for freedom's sake and life's sake. But in the other boat, two strong men each pulled two oars, while the third man crouched in the bow, pistol in hand, calling out steering instructions. This boat gained upon them, bit by bit. The fugitives could hear the lookout call "Port, hard-a-port!" and could almost see the extra weight thrown into the sweep of the starboard oars to send the boat's head the right way. Once the man at the bow took a chance on a long shot. His bullet fell harmlessly two hundred feet astern of Towser who stood in the stern of the fleeing boat, barking savagely. Thrice they turned a sharp bend and were out of sight of their enemy for a moment, but each time there was a shorter interval before the enemy shot into sight behind them. A fourth point lay just ahead. Tom looked back over his shoulder and measured the distance with his eye.

"We can just make that next point," he panted. "Soon as we do, we'll land and run. It's our only chance."

"I kain't run," said Uncle Moses, "but you'se right, Massa Tom. Dey'll catch us ef we keep a-rowin'."

They had almost reached the bend. Another strong pull would have sent them around it. But the pursuers had now so gained upon them that the lookout chanced another shot. By chance or by skill, it was a very good shot. The bullet struck Tom's oar, just above the blade. The blade dropped off as Tom was putting every ounce of his failing strength into a prodigious pull. The handle, released from all pressure, flew through the air and Tom rolled over backwards into Morris's lap. There was a shout of triumph from astern. The rowers bent to their work with a fierce vigor, feeling the victory won. Morris gave one last pull with his one oar and it sent the boat around the bend.

"And dere," as Uncle Moses with widespread arms used to tell the tale thereafter, "and dere wuz Massa Lincum's gunboats, a-crowdin' ob de ribber—'n de Stars-'n-Stripeses, dey jest kivered de sky!"

And so Unk' Mose and Morris came to their freedom and Tom came to his own. Towser became Tom's own. Uncle Moses insisted upon this and Towser highly approved of it. The giant hound worshiped the boy. Morris was speedily put to work driving a four-mule team for the commissary department of General Mitchell's force. He was accustomed to having food and lodging doled out to him, so it seemed quite natural to be given sleeping quarters (usually under the canvas cover of the wagon he drove) and rations, but it took him some months to recover from the shock of actually being paid wages for his work. When this too became natural, he felt that he was really free. Uncle Moses was too old for that sort of thing. He was bewildered by the rough and teeming life of an army-camp. He clung to Tom, was as devoted to him as Towser was, and much more helpless than the dog was. Towser made friends and important friends at once. It happened that food was rather short at headquarters the day after the fugitives found safety. Tom, waiting for a chance to go North, had been asked to share the tent of a staff-officer and to eat at headquarters' mess. An hour before dinner, one of his hosts was bewailing the scanty fare they were to have when Towser sidled around the corner of the tent with a fat chicken in his mouth and laid it with respectful devotion at his master's feet. There was a shout of applause and a roar from the assembled officers of "Good dog, good dog, Towser, do it again!" Whereupon, after some majestic wags of his mighty tail, he disappeared for a few minutes and did do it again. When the second chicken was laid at Tom's feet, Towser's position was assured. He was named an orderly by acclamation and was given a collar made of an old army belt, with the magic letters "U. S. A." upon it, a collar which he wore proudly through his happy life.

Tom, who felt quite rich when his arrears of pay were handed him, decided to give himself a treat by making Uncle Moses happy. That is the best kind of treat man or boy can give himself. Make somebody else happy and you will be happy yourself. Try it and see. So, when he finally started back for Cairo and Washington he took both Uncle Moses and Towser with him. Neither of them had ever been on a railroad train before. Equally bewildered and equally happy, they sped by steam across the thousand miles between Cairo and Washington. In those days dogs could travel with their masters, without being banished to the baggage-car. As the three neared the latter city, the great dome of the Capitol sprang into sight. Tom eagerly pointed it out.

"Look, Uncle Mose, look, Towser, there's the Capitol."

"Dat's Freedum's home," murmured Unk' Mose.

And Towser, stirred by the others' emotion, barked joyfully. He felt at home, too, because he was with Tom.