"You and the law," said Gertie. "I'm glad we don't live on the other side of the Hio, Makepeace, or I swear you'd be wanting slaves instead of prentices– if you know the difference. "

That was as pure a declaration of war as they ever gave each other, and they were all set for one of their rip-snorting knockabout break-dish fights, only Alvin was snoring up in the loft and Gertie and Makepeace just glared at each other and let this one go. Since all their quarrels came out the same, with all the same cruel things said and all the same hurts and harms done, it was like they just got fired and said, Pretend I just said all the things you hate worst in all the world to hear, and I'll pretend you said the things I hate worst back to me, and then let be.

Alvin didn't sleep all that long, nor all too well, neither. Fear and anger and eagerness all played through his body till he could hardly hold still, let alone keep his brain drifting with the currents of his dreams. He woke up dreaming of a black plow turned to gold. He woke up dreaming of Arthur Stuart being whipped. He woke up again thinking of aiming a gun at one of them Finders and puffing the trigger. He woke up again thinking of aiming at a Finder and not pulling the trigger, and then watching them go away dragging Arthur after them, him screaming all the time, Alvin, where are you! Alvin, don't let them take me.

“Wake up or hush up!” shouted Gertie. “You're scaring the children.”

Alvin opened his eyes and leaned over the edge of the loft. “Your children ain't even here.”

“Then you're scaring me. I don't know what you was dreaming, boy, but I hope that dream never comes even to my worst enemy– which happens to be my husband this morning, if you want to know the truth.”

Her mentioning Makepeace made Alvin alert, yes sir. He pulled on his trousers, wondering when and how he got up to this loft and who pulled his pants and boots off. In just that little amount of time, Gertie somehow got food on the table– cornbread and cheese and a dollop of molasses. “I don't have time to eat, Ma'am,” said Alvin. “I'm sorry, but I got to–”

“You got time.”

“No Ma'am, I'm sorry–”

“Take the bread, then, you plain fool. You plan to work all day with an empty belly? After only a morning's sleep? Why, it ain't even noon yet.”

So he was chewing on bread when he come down the hill to the forge. There was Dr. Physicker's carriage again, and the Finders' horses. For a second Alvin thought they come here cause Arthur Stuart got away somehow, and the Finders lost him, and– No. They had Arthur Stuart with them.

“Good morning, Alvin,” said Makepeace. He turned to the other men. “I must be about the softest master I ever heard of, letting my prentice boy sleep till near noon.”

Alvin didn't even notice how Makepeace was criticizing him and calling him a prentice boy when his journeyman piece stood there finished on the workbench. He just squatted down in front of Arthur Stuart and looked him in the eyes.

“Stand back now,” said the white-haired Finder.

Alvin didn't hardly notice him. He wasn't really seeing Arthur Stuart, not with his eyes, anyhow. He was searching his body for some sign of harm. None. Not yet anyway. Just the fear in the boy.

“You haven't told us yet,” said Pauley Wiseman. “Will you make them or not?”

Makepeace coughed. “Gentlemen, I once made a pair of manacles, back in New England. For a man convicted of treason, being shipped back to England in irons. I hope I never make a manacle for a seven-year-old boy who done no harm to a living soul, a boy who played around my forge and–”

“Makepeace,” said Pauley Wiseman. “I told them that if you made the manacles, they wouldn't have to use this.”

Wiseman held up the heavy iron-and-wood collar that he'd left leaning against his leg.

“It's the law,” said the white-haired Finder. “We bring runaway slaves back home in that collar, to show the others what happens. But him being just a boy, and seeing how it was his mama what run away and not him, we agreed to manacles. But it don't make no difference to me. We get paid either way.”

“You and your damned Fugitive Slave Treaty!” cried Makepeace. “You use that law to make slavers out of us, too.”

“I'll make them,” said Alvin.

Makepeace looked at him in horror. “You!”

“Better than that collar,” said Alvin. What he didn't say was, I don't intend for Arthur Stuart to wear those manacles a minute longer than tonight. He looked at Arthur Stuart. “I'll make you some manacles as don't hurt much, Arthur Stuart.”

“Wisely done,” said Pauley Wiseman.

“Good to see somebody with sense here,” said the white-haired Finder.

Alvin looked at him and tried to hold all his hatred in. He couldn't quite do it. So his spittle ended up spattering the dust at the Finder's feet.

The black-haired Finder looked ready to throw a punch at him for that, and Alvin wouldn't've minded a bit to grapple with him and maybe rub his face in the dirt a minute or two. But Pauley Wiseman jumped right between them and he had sense enough to do his talking to the black-haired Fuider, and not to Alvin. “You got to be a blame fool, setting to rassle with a blacksmith. Look at his arms.”

“I could take him,” said the Finder.

“You folks got to understand,” said the white-haired Finder. “It's our knack. We can no more help being Finders than–”

“There's some knacks,” said Makepeace, “where it'd be better to die at birth than grow up and use it.” He turned to Alvin. “I don't want you using my forge for this.”

“Don't make a nuisance of yourself, Makepeace,” said Pauley Wiseman.

“Please,” said Dr. Physicker. “You're doing the boy more harm than good.”

Makepeace backed off, but none too graciously.

“Give me your hands, Arthur Stuart,” Alvin said.

Alvin made a show of measuring Arthur's wrists with a string. Truth was, he could see the measure of him in his mind, every inch of him, and he'd shape the iron to fit smooth and perfect, with rounded edges and no more weight than needed. Arthur wouldn't feel no pain from these manacles. Not with his body, anyhow.

They all stood and watched Alvin work. It was the smoothest, purest job they'd ever see. Alvin used his knack this time, but not so it'd show. He hammered and bent the strap iron, cutting it exactly right. The two halves of each manacle fit snug, so they wouldn't shift and pinch the skin. And all the time he was thinking how Arthur used to pump the bellows for him, or just stand there and talk to him while he worked. Never again. Even after they saved him tonight, they'd have to take him to Canada or hide him somehow– as if you could hide from a Finder.

"Good work," said the white-haired Finder. "I never saw me a better blacksmith.

Makepeace piped up from the dark corner of the forge. “You should be proud of yourself, Alvin. Why, let's make those manacles your journeyman piece, all right?”

Alvin turned and faced him. “My journeyman piece is that plow setting on the workbench, Makepeace.”

It was the first time Alvin ever called his master by his first name. It was as clear as Alvin could let him know that the days of Makepeace talking to him like that were over now.

Makepeace didn't want to understand him. “Watch how you talk to me, boy! Your journeyman piece is what I say it is, and–”

“Come on, boy, let's get them on you.” The white-haired Finder wasn't interested in Makepeace's talk, it seemed.

“Not yet,” said Alvin.

“They're ready,” said the Finder.

“Too hot,” said Alvin.

“Well dip them in that bucket then and cool them off.”

"If I do that, they'll change shape just a little, and then they'll cut the boy's arms so they bleed. "

The black-haired Finder rolled his eyes. What did he care about a little blood from a mixup boy?

But the white-haired Finder knew that nobody'd stand for it if he didn't wait. "No hurry, " he said. "Can't take too long."