My father laughed. “A bed like this is good for two, maybe three; nights,” he said. “Then you’ve got to add fresh boughs to fluff it up again.”

“Are we going to sleep on browse beds?” I asked.

“We sure are,” said my father.

“They look like they might itch,” I said.

He laughed. “We’ll have our sleeping blankets to take care of that, Lizzy. You’d better worry about the black flies, instead.”

“There won’t be any black flies,” Tim said positively.

My father looked at him. “How do you know?”

“It’ll be too cold,” said Tim. “I bet it’ll even be too cold for deer flies.”

I shuddered. “I don’t like deer flies.” One had bitten me on the arm during the summer. It was just like having a chunk taken out with a pair of red hot pliers.

“Neither do the deer,” my father said. “You ever watch them flicking their ears and their tails? Those darned deer flies chew on them something awful.”

“What good are flies, Dad?” asked Tim.

“They have their place,” said my father. “Without the flies and other insects, the birds wouldn’t have anything to eat. It seems that for every critter God put on the earth, he put another one to torment it. The deer flies bite the deer; birds eat the flies; and the fox and wildcats eat the birds.”

“And men eat foxes and wildcats,” I said.

My father gave me a strange look. “Yes, Lizzy, I suppose you’re right,” he said, “Man is the only critter without a natural enemy. His only enemy is other men.” He picked up his axe just as the dinner bell rang down at the cabin. “Come on, dinner’s hot; and your mother’ll skin us if we keep her waiting.”

Time dragged. But suddenly it speeded up, and almost before I knew it, it was October 14th, and we were leaving early the next morning. The Model T was packed and our canoe was lashed on top. There were folded blankets and boxes and paddles sticking out all over.

Indian Pete had just come back from a trip into the forests upstate and had brought a saddle of beef with him. No one had to ask him what the meat really was. Miss Pauline knew exactly how to cook wild meat, which tends to be dry. I helped her while Pete and my father and Tim sat out on the porch talking. First we made sure to get all the tallow off, because that’s what gives venison the strong taste most people don’t like. I did that, stripping the yellowish fat from between the bulging chunks of muscle while Miss Pauline prepared the broth. She had cooked down some onions and beef gravy; when I was finished, she poured it over the deer meat until there was perhaps an inch or so of it in the bottom of the Dutch oven. Then she put the pot over the heat with the lid on. Soon we heard juices simmering, and a little cloud of steam rose from one corner where the lid was cracked.