Modern readers who have seen more than one action-adventure film or television show set in the Old West can easily envision the setting of this chapter, and while the rocky defile through which these pursuers are challenged to ascend may be the only one of its kind in Indiana, the excitement of the long ride through the night, the breathless chase, the scramble up the rocks, and George's heroic defiance must have quickened the blood of readers who would not have known so well what to expect.
Some aspects of this scene may not be as clear to modern readers, however, as they probably were to Stowe's original audience. The constables who have joined Loker and Marks in their pursuit of these fugitive slaves may or may not have been corrupt, but they were duly constituted officers of the law, acting within their authority, and had thus (no doubt) officially deputized not only the two slave-catchers but also the accompanying adventurers whom Loker and Marks had handily found in the nearby tavern. Riff-raff though this group may appear, it is not just a semi-drunken mob, but a semi-drunken mob representing the government, and so George's (and Phineas Fletcher's) defiance of it is a criminal act, an act of civil disobedience. We must remember, therefore, what George told Wilson in an earlier chapter: The government of the United States is not his government. He sees himself as a legitimate rebel against a tyrannical authority, and the exchange between George and one of the constables makes clear the terms upon which they meet.
