The peculiar feelings one has who is a "runaway" are indescribable. I
felt every bit an outcast, and was frightened by the least noise or the
sight of any person, and the yelp of a hound was terror to me. I skulked
and hid in the woods all day until night, when I concluded to go to
town, get something to eat, and make my arrangements for the future.

When the "hoy," who was sent by Wilson with me, returned and repeated to
him my words, vengeance was sworn against me, and the hounds were turned
loose for immediate chase. I went to the town of Pontotoc, and while
there refreshing myself in a cabin I heard hounds whining. That was
sufficient to inform me that I was trapped. What to do I did not know,
but went to the door with the intention of making my escape, if
possible, when I was met by James Wilson and five other persons fully
armed. Resistance was useless, the hounds would have caught me before I
could have run a hundred yards, even if I could have escaped the
bullets. I surrendered, and was securely tied by James Wilson and his
gang and taken back to the plantation. Dire threats were made against
me, but my mistress, James' mother, saved me again. She informed her son
that "Charles belonged to her; that Charles' mother had placed him,
under the care of God, in her custody, and that she did not intend to
have him beaten."

James insisted on "breaking" me, as he termed it, and finally prevailed
on his mother, with promises, that if she would let him deal with me he
would "break" me without whipping me. She consented. James came to the
cabin where I was tied and chained, and told me that he did not desire
to whip me, but that if I did not go to the railroad to work every slave
on the plantation would become demoralized, and they would all do as
they pleased. His words and manner were very kind and conciliatory, yet