Page:From the West to the West.djvu/75



"I don't want to make no trouble for nobody, massa," sobbed the fugitive, peeping from her covert like a beast at bay. "De missus done tuk keep o' me'dout'siderinany consikenses. Didn't ye, honey?"

"There was nothing else I could do," said Mrs. Ranger, firmly, though her cheeks blanched with an unspoken fear.

"Dey was goin' to sell me down Souf, an' keep my coon for a body-servant for his own pappy's new bride dat's a-comin' to de plantation nex' week. Wusn't dey, dawlin'?" holding aloft her mulatto offspring, who blinked at the rising sun. "'Fo' God, massa, I won't make a speck o' trouble. I'll jest keep a hidin' till we git across de Missouri Ribbah. Take me 'long to Oregon, an' ye won't nebbah be sorry."

"I've already agreed to take along one widow and her babies," said the Captain, exchanging glances with Jean. " It doesn't seem possible to add to the number."

"Jes' le' me ride a hidin' in a wagon till I get across de Missouri Ribbah, massa! I kin take keer o' myself an' my pickaninny too, if you'll turn me loose among de Injuns."

"It is the slaveholding, free American white man that the poor creature's afraid of," said Mrs. Ranger, with a bitter smile.

Again the deep baying of the bloodhounds betokened the finding of the trail.

"Climb back into the wagon, quick," cried the Captain, " and take care that you keep out o' sight! Deluge the wagon-wheel and all around it with water, gals. Don't let the wench put her nose out, Annie. Hang the luck! When it comes to such a pass that a runaway wench would rather trust herself and her brat among the red savages of the plains than among her white owners in a free country, I get ashamed of a white man's government. What's the wench's name?"

"She said it was Dugs."