RUNAWAY
577
of outrage that made Hark certain that he was the object of their
pursuit; he shivered in fright and hid his head amid the blackberries
but to his amazement and relief the baying and yelping diminished up
the road, along with the fading clatter of hooves. After a bit all was
still. Hark crouched in the blackberry patch until late afternoon.
When dusk began to fall he built a fire, cooking over it a little bacon
and some hoecake he made with water from a stream, and upon the
onset of darkness resumed his journey north.
His difficulties about finding the way began that night and
plagued him all the long hours of his flight into freedom. By notches
cut with his knife on a small stick each morning, he later calculated
(or it was calculated for him by someone who could count) the trip as
having lasted six weeks. Hannibal had counseled two guides for the
trip: the North Star, and the great plank and log turnpike leading
up through Petersburg, Richmond, Washington and Baltimore. The
names of these towns Hark too had memorized approximately and in
sequence, since Hannibal had pointed out that each place would
serve as a milestone of one's progress; also, in the event that one got
lost, such names would be useful in asking directions from some trust–
worthy-looking Negro along the route. By remaining close to the turn–
pike-although taking care to stay out of sight-one could use the
road as a kind of unvarying arrow pointing north and regard each
successive town as a marker of one's forward course on the journey
toward the free states. The trouble with this scheme, as Hark quickly
discovered, was that
it
made no provision for the numberless side
routes and forks that branched off the turnpike and which could lead
a confused stranger into all manner of weird directions, especially on
a dark night. The North Star was supposed to compensate for this
and Hark found it valuable, but on overcast evenings or in those
patches of fog which were so frequent along swampy ground this
celestial beacon was of no more use to him than the crudely painted
direction signs he was unable to read. So the darkness enfolded him
in its embrace and he lost the road as a guide. That second night, as
for so many succeeding nights, he made no progress at all but was
forced to stay in the woods until the dawn, when he began to cautious–
ly reconnoiter and found the route-a log road in daytime busy with
passing farm wagons and carts and humming with danger.
Hark had many adventures along the way. His bacon and corn-
