But I did not take on my new name without a struggle, for Flora and
Fanny had become dear to me since leaving Madison--my first horses. How
I got my second team of horses is connected with one of the most
important incidents in my life; it was a long time before I got them and
it will be some time before I can tell about it. In the meantime, there
were Flora and Fanny, hitched to Dunlap and Thatcher's light wagon,
disappearing among the burr oaks toward the Dubuque highway. I thought
of my pride as I drove away from Madison with these two steeds, and of
the pretty figure I cut the morning when red-haired Alice climbed up,
offered to go with me, and kissed me before she climbed down. Would she
have done this if I had been driving oxen, or still worse, those animals
which few thought worth anything as draught animals--cows? And then I
thought of Flora's lameness the day before yesterday. Was it honest to
let Dunlap and Thatcher drive off to liberate the nation with a horse
that might go lame?

"Let me have a horse," said I to Preston. "I want to catch them and tell
them something."

I rode up behind the Abolitionists' wagon, waving my hat and shouting.
They pulled up and waited.

"What's up?" asked Dunlap. "Going with us after all? I hope so, my boy."

"No," said I, "I just wanted to say that that nigh mare was lame day
before yesterday, and I--I--I didn't want you to start off with her
without knowing it."

Dunlap asked about her lameness, and got out to look her over. He felt