RUNAWAY
579
more black and white people than he had ever imagined existed.
Indeed, from his pinewoods view down on the town he saw so many
Negroes moving in and out and across the bridge-some of these
doubtless free, others on passes from nearby farms-that he was almost
emboldened to mingle among them and see the city, taking a chance
that he might not be challenged by a suspicious white man. Prudence
won out, however, and he slept through the day. He swam across the
river after nightfall and stole past the dark shuttered houses as he had
at Petersburg, leaving Richmond like that other town poorer by a pie
or two.
And so he made his wayan north through the dark nights, some–
times losing the road so completely that he was forced to backtrack for
several days until he regained the route. His shoes wore out and col–
lapsed and for two nights he walked close to the road on bare feet.
Finally one morning he entered the open door of a farmhouse while
its people were in the fields and made off with a pair of patent leather
boots so tight that he had to cut holes for the toes. Thus shod, he
pushed through the gloomy woods toward Washington. It must have
been August by now and the chiggers and sweat flies and the mos–
quitoes were out
in
full swarm. Some days on Hark's pine needle bed
were almost impossible for sleep. Thunderstorms rumbling out of the
west drenched him and froze him and scared him half out of his wits.
He lost sight of the North Star more times than he could count. Forks
and turnings confused
him.
Moonless nights caused
him
to stay away
from the road and lose himself in a bog or thicket where owls hooted
mournfully and the water moccasins thrashed drowsily in brackish
pools. On such nights Hark's misery and loneliness seemed more
than
he could bear. Twice he came close to being caught, the first occasion
somewhere just south of Washington when, traversing the edge of a
cornfield just before nightfall, he nearly stepped on a white man who
happened at that moment to be defecating in the bU5hes. Hark ran, the
man pulled up his pants, yelled and gave chase, but Hark quickly
outstripped him. That night, though, he heard dogs baying as if in
pursuit and for one time in his life fought down his fear of high
places and spent hours perched on the limb of a big maple tree while
the dogs bayed and moaned in the distance. His other close call came
between what must have been Washington and Baltimore when he
