The day was long and tedious.  As soon as it was dark, I once more resumed my journey.  But fatigue and the want of food and sleep rendered me almost incapable of further effort.  It was not long before I fell asleep, while walking, and wandered out of the road.  I was awakened by a bunch of moss which hung down from the limb of a tree and met my face.  I looked up and saw, as I thought, a large man standing just before me.  My first idea was that some one had struck me over the face, and that I had been at last overtaken by Huckstep.  Rubbing my eyes once more, I saw the figure before me sink down upon its hands and knees.  Another glance assured me that it was a bear and not a man.  He passed across the road and disappeared.  This adventure kept me awake for the remainder of the night.  Towards morning I passed by a plantation, on which was a fine growth of peach trees, full of ripe fruit.  I took as many of them as I could conveniently carry in my hands and pockets, and retiring a little distance into the woods, laid down and slept till evening, when I again went forward.

Sleeping thus by day and travelling by night, in a direction towards the North Star, I entered Georgia.  As I only travelled in the night time, I was unable to recognize rivers and places which I had seen before until I reached Columbus, where I recollected I had been with my master.  From this place I took the road leading to Washington, and passed directly through that village.  On leaving the village, I found myself contrary to my expectation, in an open country with no woods in view.  I walked on until day broke in the east.  At a considerable distance ahead, I saw a group of trees, and hurried on towards it.  Large and beautiful plantations were on each side of me, from which I could hear dogs bark, and the driver’s horn sounding.  On reaching the trees, I found that they afforded but a poor place of concealment.  On either hand, through its openings, I could see the men turning out to the cotton fields.  I found a place to lie down between two oak stumps, around which the new shoots had sprung up thickly, forming a comparatively close shelter.  After eating some peaches, which since leaving the Indian settlement had constituted my sole food, I fell asleep.  I was waked by the barking of a dog.  Raising my head and looking through the bushes, I found that the dog was barking at a black squirrel who was chattering on a limb almost directly above me.  A moment after, I heard a voice speaking to the dog, and soon saw a man with a gun in his hand, stealing through the wood.  He passed close to the stumps, where I lay trembling with terror lest he should discover me.  He kept his eye however upon the tree, and raising his gun, fired.  The squirrel dropped dead close by my side.  I saw that any further attempt at concealment would be in vain, and sprang upon my feet.  The man started forward on seeing me, struck at me with his gun and beat my hat off.  I leaped into the road; and he followed after, swearing