I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!

VI. Running the Gauntlet Through Georgia

C H A P T E R V I Running the Gauntlet through Georgia FTER TWENTY minutes I broke into a steady gait, the dogs still at my heels. Through bushes,briars, hills, dales, fields, swamps, and small streams I ran. The heat wasterrific; I was burning up, and when I came to a stream, I lay in it full length for a second, taking a long drink. Refreshed, I started again, only to be scorched by the heat once more. How light my feet and legs felt! For the first time in twelve weeks I was not carrying a twenty-pound chain. All morning I kept going, never stopping but to drink for a second or two when I struck water. I was tired, exhausted , ready to quit, but this was not a race, this was life or death! Somehow I called on tired muscles, heaving lungs, a pumping heart, and they answered my agonized plea, and responded when I thought they were through. What a race I ran that day. It wasabout 5P. M. and I wasstill going strong, through fields, woods, and swamps, and the dogs still with me, barking, howling, but apparently enjoying it immensely, for by this time they were my friends. I came through a wood to a small clearing occupied by a Negro shanty. There were clothes hanging on a line. A Negro woman was bending over a wash-tub beside the 68 A Running the Gauntlet 69 shanty. I needed clothes. I ran up to the line, grabbed a pair of overalls and a man's shirt, and kept right on going, still heading North. Entering another small patch of woods I changed clothes. The overalls were much too large, and so was the shirt. At about six o'clock, I struck a railroad trestle over a small river. I was so hot and so exhausted, having been on the run since morning, that this river looked like Paradise. I couldn't resist the temptation of a cool plunge. Crossing the trestle to the center I jumped in, feet first, and started swimming slowly downstream. The dogs were dismayed by this turn of affairs, but followed along the bank. I stayed in the water about half an hour, still swimming downstream. By this time the dogs were quiet. They were somewhereback along the bank. Crawling out of the river on the opposite side from which I had left the dogs, I started walking North again. Walking was quite a relief from running, and it gave me time to think. I was refreshed physically now from my great exertion, but it was still unbearably hot. So hot, in fact, that in ten minutes my clothes were practically dry. Unexpectedly at about seven o'clock I came to a paved highway. Paved highways are rare in Georgia, so I knew this must be leading me to some large city. Considerable automobile traffic was flowing both ways. Seeing this I made an instant decision. I'd go out on this highway, flag some auto, and get a ride going in any direction. The direction wouldn't make any difference, I had to keep moving and get as far away from the camp as possible. To think was to act. I was on the road. A young man in a Ford 70 I Am A Fugitive coupe stopped to pick me up. On the door of the car, in small letters were the words, "Standard Oil Company." I got in. In order to sit down I had to pick up a large basket of peaches which was on the seat beside him, and hold the basket in my lap. The peaches looked so inviting, and I must have looked at them so longingly, that he said to me, "Eat a couple of them if you want." "Thanks," I answered. As I started to eat a peach, I wondered where he was going, and, afraid he'd askmewhere I was going, I quickly framed the following question: "How far are you going?" "Atlanta," he answered. "Fine," I came back. "If you have no objections I'll thank you if I can go all the way with you." "Sure," he answered. "But it isn't far, only about nine miles." Nine miles! I must have covered about twenty-seven miles in my cross-country run. As I ate the peach, speculating on what I'd do...