I found a road leading pretty nearly in the direction which I wanted to travel, and I kept it.  After traveling several miles I found another large plantation where there was a prospect of finding a horse.  I stepped up to the barn-yard, wherein I found several horses.  There was a little barn standing with the door open, and I found it quite an easy task to get the horses into the barn, and select out the best looking one of them.  I pulled down the fence, led the noble beast out and mounted him, taking a northern direction, being able to find a road which led that way.  But I had not gone over three or four miles before I came to a large stream of water which was past fording; yet I could see that it had been forded by the road track, but from high water it was then impassible.  As the horse seemed willing to go in I put him through; but before he got in far, he was in water up to his sides and finally the water came over his back and he swam over.  I got as wet as could be, but the horse carried me safely across at the proper place.  After I got out a mile or so from the river, I came into a large prairie, which I think must have been twenty or thirty miles in width, and the road run across it about in the direction that I wanted to go.  I laid whip to the horse, and I think he must have carried me not less than forty miles that night, or before sun rise the next morning.  I then stopped him in a spot of high grass in an old field, and took off the bridle.  I thanked God, and thanked the horse for what he had done for me, and wished him a safe journey back home.

I know the poor horse must have felt stiff, and tired from his speedy jaunt, and I felt very bad myself, riding at that rate all night without a saddle; but I felt as if I had too much at stake to favor either horse flesh or man flesh.  I could indeed afford to crucify my own flesh for the sake of redeeming myself from perpetual slavery.

Some may be disposed to find fault with my taking the horse as I did; but I did nothing more than nine out of ten would do if they were placed in the same circumstances.  I had no disposition to steal a horse from any man.  But I ask, if a white man had been captured by the Cherokee Indians and carried away from his family for life into slavery, and could see a chance to escape and get back to his family; should the Indians pursue him with a determination to take him back or take his life, would it be a crime for the poor fugitive, whose life, liberty, and future happiness were all at stake, to mount any man’s horse by the way side, and ride him without asking any questions, to effect his escape?  Or who would not do the same thing to rescue a wife, child, father, or mother?  Such an act committed by a white man under the same circumstances would not only be pronounced proper, but praiseworthy; and if he neglected to avail himself of such a means of escape he would be pronounced a fool.  Therefore from this act I have nothing