Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/331

Rh around me, and over me. Two horses jumped over the log by the side of which I lay, one about ten feet from my feet, and the other within two yards from my head. The horses both saw me, took fright, and started to run; but fortunately their riders, who were probably looking for me in the tops of the trees, or expecting to see me start before them in the woods, and run for my life, did not see me, and attributed the alarm of their horses to the black appearance of the log, for I heard one of them say — "Our horses are afraid of black logs: I wonder how they would stand the sight of the negro if we should meet him."

There must have been in the troop at least twenty horsemen, and the number of dogs was greater than I could count as they ran in the woods. I knew that all these men and dogs were in search of me, and that if they could find me I should be hunted down like a wild beast. The dogs that had gone into the thicket where I had been, fortunately for me had not been trained to hunt negroes in the woods, and were probably brought out for the purpose of being trained. — Doubtless if some of the kept dogs, as they are called of which there were certainly several in this large pack had happened to go into that thicket, instead of those that did go there, my race would soon have been run.

I lay still by the side of the log for a long time after the horses, dogs and men had ceased to trouble the