My father’s lips tightened. “Why?”

“He go moose hunting in Canada, want to be sure rifle shooting straight. Say targets no good, must try on live game.”

“I don’t think I would like your client,” said my father.

“I don’t like him either,” I said.

Indian Pete gave me a big smile. “You good shot, Miss Elizabeth?”

“I can shoot the eye out of a mosquito at fifty paces,” I boasted.

“Lizzy!” warned my father.

“Well, I can hit a tin can,” I corrected.

“You remember skunk we trapped?” Pete asked.

“Yes.”

“No waste. Kill’um, skin’um.”

“I remember,” I said, “and you didn’t even want him.”

“Great Spirit give’um, no waste’um. Skin, eat, put bones back in ground. Corn grow next year.”

“Pete,” I said, “sometimes you talk just like my father and me, and sometimes you talk like the old Indians in books. Why?”

“I like to keep in practice,” Pete said.

We had breakfast early, before sunrise. Miss Pauline had fried eggs and home-cured bacon, salty and hot, and biscuits with honey and butter she’d churned the night before. She sat at the table with us but did not eat. She busied herself pouring coffee for my father, and milk for Tim and me and asking us if we wanted any more.

“Pauline,” my father said, “we aren’t going to the South Pole. The canoe is almost loaded to the gunwales now. If I eat any more, we’ll founder.”

“Well,” I said, “they think the Admiral is going to make it to the South Pole. I heard it on the radio last night.”

The mellow-voiced man had told us about the great expedition. It seemed as if this time they would succeed in reaching the bottom of the world. He had told, also, of a terrible train wreck in Iowa and of a gang of convicts who had escaped from the jail in Glens Falls, probably over the border into Vermont.

“I wish Pete were going with you,” Miss Pauline said.

“So do I,” said my father. “He’s a good man in the woods. Maybe next time.” He stood up. “Time to go. Is everything loaded?”

It had been my job to check each item off the list we had prepared. I could have done it from memory, but I had used the list. Just to be safe. “We didn’t forget a thing,” I said.

“Well, if we did, we can do without it,” said my father. He kissed Miss Pauline and she let her hands cling to his back for a moment, then she busied herself clearing the table. She said without looking at Tim and me, “You have a good time, and don’t give your father any back talk, you hear me?”