For the past week Edna Cunning Fox had been preparing a list of supplies to get when they went out to the village. The notebook was always close at hand, and whenever one or the other thought of something it was written down.

"I need a pair of heavy leather mitts to wear when I'm catching mink," Albert said. "Did you make a note of that?"

She shook her head. "John didn't have any the last time we were out and didn't know when he would get them so I ordered a pair from Simpson-Sears. They should be waiting for us when we get our mail."

"I hope so. Mine are about shot."

"I put a new pair of jeans for Strong Deer on the list," Edna said. "And a jacket."

The boy didn't know why they would get him any clothes. They were paying him wages and feeding him.

"I don't need anything," he mumbled in protest.

"The jeans you have look awfully thin to me," Edna said.

The Indian boy hoped that they would take him to the village with them to make sure that they bought the right size. It would be one way for him to get back to old Rabbit Skin and induce him to tell the future by looking in the side of his polished axe head. And now, he could pay the medicine man the way the men and women in the village did when they sought his services. He didn't have a lot of money, but it was more than he had ever had in all his life. He would give it all to find out about his mother.

However, Albert said nothing to him about going along. Edna measured him around his waist and frail chest and measured the length of his arms. "If John doesn't have anything to fit you, we'll order from the catalogue so you can have them the next time we go in," she explained.

"You have some money coming, you know," Cunning Fox told him. 'Is there anything you want us to get you?"

"I'll wait until I can go out myself."

Albert shrugged. "Just as you like."

The night before the trip across the big lake he suggested that they go to bed earlier than usual. "We'll have to get up a couple of hours sooner than we usually do, so we can get the fish in and the mink fed before Edna and I leave."

The next morning on the way to the boat Edna stopped and asked him to hoe the garden. "The weeds are about to take over since the rain."

"Ehe," he grunted. He was too shy to protest at being left behind. But it wouldn't have hurt them to take him along, he thought, as his temper flared up inside. He thought about getting the sweet grass and tobacco and trying to summon the spirit of the deer to be his helper. At least there wasn't anyone around to bother him now. But he didn't feel like it. He didn't feel like doing anything-especially hoeing that stupid garden. But he supposed he had to get it done or Albert and Edna would have a fit.

He should have told them he was quitting. He would have done so if he had thought of it while they were still on the island. He could have given Rabbit Skin's wife a little money and she'd have been glad to have him around-at least for a while. There was no need to concern himself with what he would have done after that. Something would have turned up.

But he hadn't quit and now he couldn't there was no way for him to get out to the village. He shaded his eyes and squinted into the sun in the direction of Big Island. He could probably swim that far, but it wouldn't do him any good. Nobody lived on the long, hilly island, and the far end was miles and miles from the village. He could not escape his situation unless somebody stopped by and took him with them.

Strong Deer was so angry that he fooled around most of the morning. He was just finishing the garden when he saw the boat returning in the distance. He finished the last row, put the hoe in the shed and went down to the water to wait for them. As the boat slowly approached the dock, Cunning Fox and his wife waved to Strong Deer. His resentment vanished. Dashing onto the planking, he grabbed the heavily laden boat as it nosed in.

"Hi." He was genuinely glad to see them, even though they had made him stay on the island.

"I'm glad the wind was down," Albert said, getting out of the cumbersome flat-bottomed craft and tying it fore and aft. 'We'd have had to leave half of this stuff on the mainland if we'd had high waves to buck."

Strong Deer understood then why they had left him on the island, and he felt better about it.

"We were able to get you a jacket and a new pair of jeans," Edna said, stooping to pick up the package.

"And a sack of candy," Albert added, "but you don't get that until we have this stuff unloaded and carried up to the house."

"I'll help you." The Indian boy took a box of groceries and started for the house. Cunning Fox followed him, a hundred-pound bag of flour balanced on his shoulder.

"I didn't know we needed flour this time, Edna," he said, swinging the heavy sack to the floor.

"We didn't. We got flour the last time we went out."

"Then why did we order this one?"

She turned around. 'We didn't order any flour, Albert."

"Are you sure?"

She got out the list and went over it carefully. "See, there's no flour on the bill, so we didn't order it or pay for it."

"The boy at the store must have put it in our boat by mistake," Albert commented.

Strong Deer was laughing. "Man, are you ever lucky!"

Both Albert and Edna looked questioningly at him. "What do you mean?"

"You get that big bag of flour and it doesn't cost you a penny."

They said nothing. The Indian boy snickered, "When John finally misses it he'll think somebody stole it. Everybody in the village will hear him cussing about it."

Cunning Fox moved the flour to the far corner of the kitchen. Strong Deer followed him, fooling with the strings that held it closed. "Is it all right if I open it?" he asked. "I like to figure out which string to pull that makes it work like a zipper."

"Please don't," Edna said. "The flour isn't ours."

He looked up, grinning. "It's yours now. John gave it to you."

"Kawin," Albert countered. "It isn't ours. We got it through an error. It belongs to the Hudson Bay. We'll take it back to John on our next trip."

The Indian boy shook his head. "If you paid twice I'll bet John would put the money in his pocket. He wouldn't give it back to you."

"I think he would, but it doesn't matter what he would do in a case like this," the mink rancher said. "We're the ones who got the flour by mistake. And we're the ones who have to take it back."

Strong Deer knew that Cunning Fox and his wife were much different from anyone else he had ever known, but they had to be out of their minds even to think about taking the flour back to the Hudson Bay store. A hundred-pound sack wasn't cheap and it was rightfully theirs. The clerk had given it to them.

It wasn't as though they could get in trouble for it. If the manager at the Bay found out about it, he couldn't do anything except to make them pay for it or bring it back. And the chances were he would never find out. All they had to do was keep their mouths closed and no one would ever know they had it.

"Going to help me with the rest of our supplies, Strong Deer?" Albert asked.

He followed him back to the heavily loaded boat. They had carried everything to the house before Edna remembered the mail. She took the letters and magazines from one of the grocery boxes and handed them to her husband. "I forgot about these."

"So did I. " He shuffled through them. "Here's a letter for you, Strong Deer. When Rabbit Skin brought it back to the post office he put it in with our mail."

The boy's fingers were trembling as he took it and for an instant or two stared at the unfamiliar handwriting on the envelope. He hesitated, unable to bring himself to open it for a time.

"From your mother?" Edna asked.

He shook his head. The letter was from the hospital she was in, but she hadn't addressed the envelope.

Choking, he tore it open and removed the single sheet of paper. "It's from one of the nurses," he muttered.

Albert and his wife watched him prayerfully as he read the brief letter. His eyes became a mirror of hurt and disappointment. With a sudden gesture he threw the letter on the floor and ran outside.

"Strong Deer!" Albert called after him. "Is something wrong'?" Only the wind answered him. Edna came up beside her husband and watched with him as the boy disappeared into the woods.

"Do you think-" She could not find words for her fears.

"His mother is still alive," Albert said numbly as he picked the crumpled letter off the floor and began to read. "But she doesn't seem to be responding to treatment, though. She's very ill-very weak."

Tears flooded Edna's eyes. "I wish there were something we could do for him."

Meanwhile, Strong Deer sped past the mink pens, across the clearing and into the brush. He rushed up the tree-covered spine of the island, forcing his way through the tangled skein of branches and dead falls. He stumbled and sprawled on the ground, scratching his arms and tearing a thin, jagged gash in his cheek. He felt the burning sting as the sharp branch ripped a shallow furrow in the flesh. Almost mechanically he wiped away the thin line of blood, only to have it appear again. But the fall did not stop him. He scrambled to his feet, almost immune to pain, and continued his mad, unthinking dash. He tore down to the beach across the island from Cunning Fox's mink ranch and ran for a hundred yards or so along the water. At last, exhausted, he stopped and leaned against a tree, breathing heavily.

His senses came back slowly: the feel of waves splashing on his moccasined feet, the pain that marked the ragged cut on his cheek, the numbing hurt that gripped his stomach and twisted it savagely, the hurt that came with the reading of the letter from the nurse who was helping to care for his mother. Now that he had stopped he didn't know why he had run the way he had, but at the moment it seemed to help. He couldn't think so much when his lungs were screaming for air.

He would never see his mother again. That was what the nurse was trying to tell him. First it was his dad, drowning when his boat flipped over in a sudden storm just before freeze-up. That had happened when Strong Deer was so small he was still in his cradleboard. Now, his mother! He would be alone.

He was still motionless when he saw something move in the bush a dozen yards away. Quickly he bent to pick up a stick, then waited. It wasn't long until a deer poked its head out of the bush and looked about curiously before coming out to drink.

The deer! He had wanted it for his spirit helper so his mother would get well! But now he rejected the idea. The spirits didn't care what happened to her.

He threw the stick and it cracked a branch above the beautiful animal's head. The buck whirled and crashed noisily into the brush.

Some time later Cunning Fox found Strong Deer lying in the patch of sweet grass on the island, his fists clutching thick handfuls in anger and frustration. "There you are," the mink rancher said tenderly. "I've been looking all over for you."