The laws of the State affixed the death penalty for stealing a slave.

At night when young Coffin and his father, with Sam, were on their way to complete arrangements for the departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by.
They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind a log.

From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they had narrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes.

The next year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by the southern route through Tennessee and Kentucky.

In the latter State they were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet dog, but whose real purpose was to recover runaway slaves.