A listener note, this episode quotes historical records containing racially offensive language.

It's Winter 1852.

A man named Mr. Haley enters a Kentucky tavern in need of a drink.

He's in a surly mood. Haley recently purchased a slave, a boy the age of five from a plantation owner.

But the boy's mother, hearing her son, had been sold, took the boy and escaped into Ohio across the frozen river.

The slave trader's mood changes, however, when an old business acquaintance of his enters a tavern.

Well, by Providence, I do believe that's Tom Locher.

Entering a tavern is Locher, a brawny muscular man dressed in a coat of buffalo skin.

He's a slave hunter and a good one.

Though the mother and her boy have managed to escape into a free state, since the passage of the fugitive slave act,

men like Locher have legal authority to enter the north and force runaway slaves back into captivity.

Locher, how are you?

I'm going to devilove a hobble and you must help me out.

Haley gives Locher the rundown of his situation with the boy and his mother, and then he offers Locher a deal.

You catch the boy from me, you can keep the mother or sell her off if you like.

Now, Mr. Haley, if you want us to undertake to catch this your gal, you've got a fork over $50 flat down.

Why, Tom, you're unreasonable. We're booked for five weeks to come.

Suppose we leave all and goes to bushwacking around after your youngins and doesn't catch the gal.

What then? Would you pay us a cent?

Now, flat down your 50. If we get the job and it pays, I'll hand it back.

If we don't, it's for our trouble. That's fair ain't it?

Haley knows that for Locher, it's all about the money, which he's making, hand over fist. Business is booming.

...