Runaway (choose your own adventure

chapter three - a trustworthy rider.

After the Fugitive Slave Acts were put into action lots more people used the opportunity to get well-paying jobs. An easy one would be to become a watchman, where people would search around town raiding school houses, private homes, and churches in search of slaves being hidden inside. Something more common would be a Slave catcher, who went all around the south and parts of the north searching everywhere for runaway slaves. The job was higher paying but only men could partake. Both forms of slave hunters used the Fugitive acts to get their way, allowing barging into houses and schools to search them, also a "...was denied the right to jury trial..." according to HISTORY.com, and if caught and will immediately either die or be sold back to the owner or a new one, and about thirty thousand slaves were caught before 1850.

I decided to trust him.

He told me to hop into the back of his wagon and hide under the wool blankets and baskets, I obliged, jumping into the wagon and covering myself in the sheepskin. We started to ride along the dirt paths, the bumpiness and the fact that I was under the blankets, meant it was hard to tell the direction we were going but I could slightly feel us turn a few times, so I was pretty confident that we had turned around to head north. 

After what seemed like days, but was probably just a few hours, we stopped. he told me that it was safe to come out. I poked my head through the blankets. It was a cold night but under all the fabric I had gotten sweaty and now that I was out in the open the sweat froze and I suddenly appreciated the warmth a bit more. I took a look around, it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere. I was about to ask him where we were, but before I could both my hands were taken behind me and I felt shackles put around them.

I started to panic and turned around scared. 

When I turned to see the man, he was giving an evil smile. I gave him a questioning look and he started to tell me how inferior and stupid I was. I only noticed now that there was a whip attached to the back of his seat. I stood up to run but he grabbed the chains that were holding me and pulled me back, the cuffs rubbing on my skin and making them sting. He told me that there was someone looking for someone by my description and that he was getting paid a great deal for me. Just as I had a chance at freedom it had been stolen from me.

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