"She darted out of the back door and ran toward the river, followed by her pursuers. . . . Clasping her babe to her bosom with her left arm, she sprang onto the first cake of ice, then from that to another and another." Here, in Levi Coffin's words, is the original tale of Eliza Harris featured in Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and Rodgers' and Hammerstein's "The King and I." Levi Coffin was first called "president of the Underground Railroad" by frustrated slave hunters in the years leading up to the Civil War. From his homes in Newport (now Fountain City) Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio, he and his wife Catherine risked their lives helping thousands of men, women and children escape from slavery in Kentucky and further south. His autobiographical window on the times includes hundreds of dramatic stories told by the slaves as they passed through his home following the northern star to freedom. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.