Caleb escapes using the alleyway and hides out not too far from the jail; he hopes that people will assume he kept running and will go further to look for him. He is proven right when two of the keepers pass by him (298). Caleb is too afraid to move, so he waits for hours and leaves right before sunrise. Caleb travels the roads and the forest but does his best to avoid people; however, a group eventually approach him on the road. When Caleb learns that they’re thieves, he tells them he “ha[s] not a shilling in the word, and [is] more than half-starved” (301), but they don’t care and try to take his clothes. Caleb fights back, taking a blow to his neck and shoulder that seriously injure him. However, before one of his attackers, a man named Gines, can take a second swing, one of the others stops him and reminds him that they are not murderers (302). The men strip Caleb of his coat, roll him into a ditch, and leave him there to die (303).