In Chap­ter 10, the pro­tag­o­nist faces the chal­lenges of his jour­ney as a run­away. Walk­ing for three days through the wilder­ness, he is increas­ing­ly aware of the dan­gers posed by being dis­cov­ered by Thatch­er, the man who knows his where­abouts. Despite feel­ing clos­er to his fam­i­ly, he remains far away from reunit­ing with them. Encoun­ter­ing a black man in a corn­field, they share a brief con­ver­sa­tion about their lives, with the pro­tag­o­nist reveal­ing his run­away sta­tus and the where­abouts of his wife and daugh­ter, who were tak­en to the Gra­ham farm—an estab­lish­ment not­ed for breed­ing and sell­ing slaves.

The man guides him towards a near­by town, pos­si­bly Edi­na, before he leaves to fetch food. Alone, the pro­tag­o­nist reads a nar­ra­tive by William Brown, feel­ing a deep con­nec­tion to the strug­gles described with­in it and mourn­ing his fam­i­ly. Upon awak­en­ing, he meets April and Hol­ly, who bring him food, and they engage in dis­cus­sion about his inten­tions to locate his wife and daugh­ter. While April express­es skep­ti­cism about his plan to con­front the plan­ta­tion, the pro­tag­o­nist is res­olute, admit­ting he is guilty of crimes but assert­ing the urgency of his mis­sion.

As dark­ness set­tles, he trav­els across a val­ley and draws near to what seems to be the Gra­ham place. He assess­es the sit­u­a­tion, observ­ing chained men and the bleak­ness of their con­di­tions, detach­ing momen­tar­i­ly to dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions of his actions with them. Clear­ly unde­terred by dan­ger, he uncuffs the men and encour­ages them to join his quest for free­dom. They express their aware­ness of the grim cir­cum­stances of the women, includ­ing the pro­tag­o­nist’s fam­i­ly, and desire to escape.

Ulti­mate­ly, by the chap­ter’s end, alliances form as the pro­tag­o­nist and the freed men, named Mor­ris, Har­vey, Llewe­lyn, and Buck, pre­pare to embark on a new ven­ture toward free­dom. The air is thick with ten­sion and hope, under­scor­ing the stakes of their jour­ney, and the chap­ter clos­es with their resolve to take a chance against the oppres­sive forces of slav­ery .