reach both at once. They ran
back into the house.

The cavalcade wound on up Ridge Road toward the Tigmores. At its
far-away end now trotted the Kentucky blacks, drawing a light trap. The
man on the box-seat was a big, deep-chested man, long and powerful of
forearm. He held the exuberant, snorting blacks easily with one hand.
The woman beside him was a good mate for him, firmly knit, strong in her
movements. Under her black hat the burnish of her hair and skin made her
look gold-dusted.

They were high up Razor Ridge. Below the Ridge, Big Wheat Valley and
We-all Prairie stretched away from the Tigmore foot-hills in broad
strips of harvest gold. The sky was brilliantly blue; even Choke Gulch's
glooms were flecked with light. The scrub-oak, the dog-wood, the
chinca-pin, the walnut, the hickory, sumach and sassafras trailed over
the Tigmores like a giant green veil. On beyond the Tigmores the pale
wide Di ran slowly, goldenly, a molten river.

As the procession went on up the hill the people called from one waggon
to another, their tongues set going by the passing of Madeira Place and
the advent of the Kentucky blacks into the procession.

"They say Miss Sally, Miz Steerin', that is, feels mighty broke up
because her paw didn' live to see all that's a-goin' on this day."

"Yass, reckin's haow that's true."

"Howdy, Miz Dade, haow you come on?"

"Huccome you to come, Asa?"

"They say the Steerin's air goin' away to-night. Goin' back East on a
visit."

"Yass, that's true. The tramp-boy is goin' along. D'you know that? Yass,
goin' to N'York, on his way to Italy. The Steerin's air sendin' him."

"Well, they cand all go whur they please, I wouldn' leave Mizzourah
these days, not me. Wy, ev' farm in the Tigmores is liable to turn into
a zinc mine any night. Say, do you know air the Steerin's to be long
gone?"

"Nope, not so long. Unc' Bernique's to run things while they away."

"Oh, well, then."

The cavalcade's forerunners had now reached the top of the Tigmore
Uplift. They began to deploy into the woods overhanging Choke Gulch. A
trail had been cut, the trees were down until it was possible to get
through with the vehicles, though it was rough going. At the end of the
newly made road a great clearing opened up to the on-coming people. The
teams were driven over to a thicket and the people spilled out of the
vehicles and swarmed over the clearing. One by one, then two by two, in
their hurry, the teams came in,