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40 standing on the track. They stopped until Ben spoke his own name, when they followed him into a field, and coming to a stack of corn stalks, Ben removed a few bundles, and the men went in. The women were secreted in a similar place, and after a hearty breakfast, provided for them by their host, they all laid down and slept soundly.

Ben was a free negro, very old and decrepit. He had been supplied with money to rent this field, and “make a crop of corn,” and to fix up the place and take care of it. The stacks of corn in which they were secreted were close to the railroad, so that no one would look in so public a place for fugitives. Old Ben, during the next day, obliterated all tracks in the field by husking and moving his bundles of stalks. As soon as it was dark a man took Kate and Nancy away. They walked along the track to a cross road, and along the road some distance, then started for Baltimore in a coach, driven by a negro. The boys did not awake until an hour after the women were gone, when they were aroused by a pack of hounds. The dogs were moving carefully about, as they often do when the track is old, occasionally giving out a sharp yelp. When they struck the fresh tracks of Kate and Nancy, who had been gone about an hour, the whole pack broke into a wild scream, varying between the hoarse howl of the old hounds and shrill screech of the pups.