Mr. Boone wished me luck in my new enterprise, bade me good-by, and set
out for Redstone, where he was to measure a tract for a Revolutioner.
The speculator having been rescued from Jim Willis's clutches by the
sheriff, the crowd good-naturedly helped us load our stones between
pack-horses, and some of them followed us all the way home that they
might see the grinding. Half of McAfee's new station had heard the news,
and came over likewise. And from that day we ground as much corn as
could be brought to us from miles around.

Polly Ann and I ran the mill and kept the accounts. Often of a crisp
autumn morning we heard a gobble-gobble above the tumbling of the water
and found a wild turkey perched on top of the hopper, eating his fill.
Some of our meat we got that way. As for Tom, he was off and on. When
the roving spirit seized him he made journeys to the westward with Cowan
and Ray. Generally they returned with packs of skins. But sometimes
soberly, thanking Heaven that their hair was left growing on their heads.
This, and patrolling the Wilderness Road and other militia duties, made
up Tom's life. No sooner was the mill fairly started than off he went to
the Cumberland. I mention this, not alone because I remember well the
day of his return, but because of a certain happening then that had a
heavy influence on my after life.

The episode deals with an easy-mannered gentleman named Potts, who was
the agent for a certain Major Colfax of Virginia. Tom owned under a
Henderson grant; the Major had been given this and other lands for his
services in the war. Mr. Potts arrived one rainy afternoon and found me
standing alone under the little lean-to that covered the hopper. How we
served him, with the aid of McCann and Cowan and other neighbors, and how
we were near getting into trouble because of the prank, will be seen
later. The next morning I rode into Harrodstown not wholly easy in my
mind concerning the wisdom of the thing I had done. There was no one to
advise me, for Colonel Clark was far away, building a fort on the banks
of the Mississippi. Tom had laughed at the consequences; he cared little
about his land, and was for moving into the Wilderness again. But for
Polly Ann's sake I wished that we had treated the land agent less
cavalierly. I was soon distracted from these thoughts by the sight of
Harrodstown itself.

I had no sooner ridden out of the forest shade when I saw that the place
was in an uproar, men and