They drove along. The road turned off from the main highway and went up into the hills. It was hard pulling for the horses and the boys got down and walked. The road was sandy. Nick looked back from the top of the hill by the schoolhouse. He saw the lights of Petoskey and, off across Little Traverse Bay, the lights of Harbour Springs. They climbed back in the wagon again. “They ought to put some gravel on that stretch,” Joe Garner said. The wagon went along the road through the woods. Joe and Mrs. Garner sat close together on the front seat. Nick sat between the two boys. The road came out into a clearing. “Right here was where Pa ran over the skunk.” “It was further on.” “It don’t make no difference where it was,” Joe said without turning his head. “One place is just as good as another to run over a skunk.” “I saw two skunks last night,” Nick said. “Where?” “Down by the lake. They were looking for dead fish along the beach.” “They were coons probably,” Carl said. “They were skunks. I guess I know skunks.” “You ought to,” Carl said. “You got an Indian girl.” “Stop talking that way, Carl,” said Mrs. Garner. “Well, they smell about the same.” Joe Garner laughed. “You stop laughing, Joe,” Mrs. Garner said. “I won’t have Carl talk that way.” “Have you got an Indian girl, Nickie?” Joe asked. “No.” “He has too, Pa,” Frank said. “Prudence Mitchell’s his girl.” “She’s not.” “He goes to see her every day.” “I don’t.” Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell. “She ain’t my girl,” he said. “Listen to him,” said Carl. “I see them together every day.” “Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.” Carl was quiet. “Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said. “You shut up.” “You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said. “Girls never got a man anywhere. Look at your pa.” “Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the wagon jolted. “Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.” “I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.” “Don’t you think it,” Joe said. “You better watch out to keep Prudie, Nick.” His wife whispered to him and Joe laughed. “What you laughing at?” asked Frank. “Don’t you say it, Garner,” his wife warned. Joe laughed again. “Nickie can have Prudence,” Joe Garner said. “I got a good girl.” “That’s the way to talk,” Mrs. Garner said. The horses were pulling heavily in the sand. Joe reached out in the dark with the whip. “Come on, pull into it. You’ll have to pull harder than this to-morrow.”