“God does the most of it,” Sarah quoted from the young girl, as they rode on.  “I guess He’s saved ’em from the poorhouse to-day.  I hope they’ll ketch up with us.  I’d like to look after those children a little.  They need a mother so.”

“They’ll ketch up all right,” said Samson.  “We’re loaded heavier than they’ll be and goin’ purty slow.  They’ll be leavin’ No Santa Claus Land to-morrow mornin’.  Seems so God spoke to me when that girl said there wa’n’t no Santa Claus there.”

“No Santa Claus Land is a good name for it,” said Sarah.

They got into a bad swale that afternoon and Samson had to cut some corduroy to make a footing for team and wagon and do much prying with the end of a heavy pole under the front axle.  By and by the horses pulled them out.

“When ol’ Colonel bends his neck things have to move, even if he is up to his belly in the mud,” said Samson.

As the day waned they came to a river in the deep woods.  It was an exquisite bit of forest with the bells of a hermit thrush ringing in one of its towers.  Their call and the low song of the river were the only sounds in the silence.  The glow of the setting sun which lighted the western windows of the forest had a color like that of the music-golden.  Long shafts of it fell through the tree columns upon the road here and there.  Our weary travelers stopped on the rude plank bridge that crossed the river.  Odors of balsam and pine and tamarack came in a light, cool breeze up the river valley.

“It smells like Bear Valley,” said Sarah.

“What was that poetry you learned for the church party?” Samson asked.

“I guess the part of it you’re thinking of is: 

  ’And west winds with musky wing
  Down the cedarn alleys fling
  ‘Nard and Cassia’s balmy smells.’”

“That’s it,” said Samson.  “I guess we’ll stop at this tavern till to-morrow.”

Joe was asleep and they laid him on the blankets until supper was ready.

Soon after supper Samson shot a deer which had waded into the rapids.  Fortunately, it made the opposite shore before it fell.  All hands spent that evening dressing the deer and jerking the best of the meat.  This they did by cutting the meat into strips about the size of a man’s hand and salting and laying it on a rack, some two feet above a slow fire, and covering it with green boughs.  The heat and smoke dried the meat in the course of two or three hours and gave it a fine flavor.  Delicious beyond any kind of meat is venison treated in this manner.  If kept dry, it will retain its flavor and its sweetness for a month or more.

Samson was busy with this process long after the others had gone to bed.  When it was nearly finished he left the meat on the rack, the fire beneath it having burned low, crossed the river to the wagon, got his blanket, reloaded his gun and lay down to sleep with the dog beside him.