"Tom," said Polly Ann, "you kin just go back alone if you don't take
Davy."

So one of the Winn boys agreed to come over to stay with old Mr. Ripley
until quieter times.

The preparations for the wedding went on apace that week. I had not
thought that the Grape Vine settlement held so many people. And they
came from other settlements, too, for news spread quickly in that
country, despite the distances. Tom McChesney was plainly a favorite
with the men who had marched with Rutherford. All the week they came,
loaded with offerings, turkeys and venison and pork and bear
meat--greatest delicacy of all--until the cool spring was filled for the
feast. From thirty miles down the Broad, a gaunt Baptist preacher on a
fat white pony arrived the night before. He had been sent for to tie the
knot.

Polly Ann's wedding-day dawned bright and fair, and long before the sun
glistened on the corn tassels we were up and clearing out the big room.
The fiddlers came first--a merry lot. And then the guests from afar
began to arrive. Some of them had travelled half the night. The
bridegroom's friends were assembling at the McChesney place. At last,
when the sun was over the stream, rose such Indian war-whoops and shots
from the ridge trail as made me think the redskins were upon us. The
shouts and hurrahs grew louder and louder, the quickening thud of horses'
hoofs was heard in the woods, and there burst into sight of the assembly
by the truck patch two wild figures on crazed horses charging down the
path towards the house. We scattered to right and left. On they came,
leaping logs and brush and ditches, until one of them pulled up, yelling
madly, at the very door, the foam-flecked sides of his horse moving with