woman, and let loose her jaw, and wasn’t she mad, do you think? Wal, she wasn’t—that is, not much. She was mighty sorry for ye, but then ye see, there was the $300, and more, too, on conditions, ye know, and business has been mighty dull all summer. She said you had but just started, and I could follow your track with the old hound, ‘but you must tie him,’ said the old woman, ‘or somebody will get killed sure.’” “I was sorry,” said Oneda, “to have to do as I did, but I could not help it.” It was with great difficulty that she walked to the town, and when they got there, Randall, the jailer, asked Tice to stay till morning, and then they would write to Mr. L—— to come after his slave. Tice was an easy going fellow, and boasted that he never did a cruel thing when he could avoid it. Randall’s family lived in the jail, and Tice said to Mrs. Randall, “This poor child is tired out and starved. You give her a good supper and let her sleep on a bed; we won’t lock her in a cell to-night.”
Mrs. Randall objected at first, saying she would not be responsible for her safe keeping. Tice, laughing, said “her Prince would see to that.” In the morning Tice and the jailer went into the office and wrote a letter, notifying her master that Oneda and Prince were both safe in Pike County jail, but before mailing the letter they went to her room and she was gone. Mrs. Randall could give no account of her; she had put her in bed as directed, and that was all she could say about it; if she had got away she was glad of it, for, said she, “that girl has no more right to be a slave than I have. She is whiter than any of us.” A blood-hound was procured and taken to her room, and after smelling around, he took her track, being led by a cord, and went directly to the west fork of the Big Sandy, which runs through the town. Beyond that the hound could find no track, and it was decided that she must have taken a light skiff that
