The boys had left the lodge that afternoon before they found out whether the McDonalds wanted them to come back the following morning. They were just finishing their evening meal when one of the girls who cleaned and helped with the laundry, drove over with a note for them.

"They want both of us again tomorrow," Robert said as he returned to the table.

"How about trading jobs?" Louis asked. "I'll take Mr. McDonald fishing and you can take his wife around the lake looking for flowers." He paused.  "Flowers and birds.  She's nuts about both of them."

"No way!" Robert exclaimed. "I hear she thinks you're the greatest. Besides, I'm afraid I couldn't handle the job to suit her."

"She does like me. I've got to say that for her. She asked for me. I guess that means she knows the smart one in the family."

"And Mr. McDonald knows the fisherman."

Louis made a face at him.

Robert had suggested to his fisherman that they get an early start the next time they went out, and he agreed.

"I always like to get an early start on a job I enjoy," the wealthy publisher said.

The older Yazzie boy was up early and left the house as soon as he finished breakfast.  He arrived at the lodge shortly after six that morning, but neither of the McDonalds had come down for breakfast yet.

"I'm afraid you've got quite a wait coming," the lodge manager said. "They usually aren't in the dining room until after nine."

"He told me he wanted to get an early start."

"He probably means that he wants to eat at 9:00 and get out on the lake about 10:30."

However, Angus McDonald had breakfast shortly after 7:00 that morning and was ready to go.

Before Robert and McDonald left the dock, Angus said, "Verda tells me that your brother, Louis, is going to take her out again today."

"That's right. He should be here any time."

"She had a good time with Louis and wants to go out again, but she's uneasy being out on the lake when there aren't that many other boats around."

"We don't have trouble very often," Robert told him.

"She knows that, but she's still uneasy. She was stranded on a lake once and thought they were going to be out all night. They weren't, but it scared her terribly. She doesn't want to go out again unless there's some sort of radio or phone along. Is there any sort of cell phone service up here?"

Robert shook his head.  "I've never heard of it, but the exploration crews at the mine use marine band radios little guys about the size of a portable CB. Dad might make arrangements for one of those."

"I'll take care of it," McDonald said. "Just give me a minute." He went to the phone and dialed the superintendent at the mine. "Hudson!" he said crisply. "McDonald here.  The Yazzie kid who's guiding for me says you have some marine band radios over there. Right?"

"Our crews use them when they're in the field."

"Send a couple over here right away. Verda's going out on the lake with Louis Yazzie.  She wants to have radio contact with the people here at the lodge. OK?"

"Of course it's OK, Angus. She'll be hooked up to our office, so if there are any problems she can get in touch with us and we'll take care of it.  When do you want the radio? Tomorrow?"

"It might rain tomorrow. She wants to get out on the lake today." He glanced at his watch. "You can have it here in 30 minutes, can't you?"

"I'll try to, Angus," he said doubtfully. "But I don't think I can promise it to you quite that soon."

"I don't want you to try to have it here!  I want it here, and I don't want my wife to have to wait! She gets her dander up when she has to wait for something. You can do that little favor for me, can't you?"

"Oh yes. It will be there."

"Maybe you'd better send us two radios," the publisher said. "Robert tells me he's going to take me to a place where the fish are so big I'm apt to need help. You wouldn't want me to lose the best fish I ever caught in my life, would you? I want those radios in half an hour! Understand?"

"Yes, Sir, Mr. McDonald. I'll have them there if I have to bring them over to you myself."

"Now, that's better. That's much better."

McDonald hung up and turned around, winking at Robert. "That's the way to get things done. Make the people who work for you jump when you tell them something.  And always keep them wondering what you're going to do next. Never let them get to the place where they think they know what you'll do every time you make a move."

Robert did not reply.

"The people in my Toronto office know when I say something that they have to move when I give an order. I don't put up with any foolishness! And that's a fact! They might not like me. I suppose there are only a few who do, but I don't take anything from them and they know it. When I holler jump, you know what they say?"

He shook his head.

"They don't ask why, all they ask is, how high?"

Robert Yazzie knew he didn't want to work for Mr. McDonald any more than guiding for him, but it seemed important to his dad that he do his best to catch fish for the Toronto publisher, so he was going to try his best to satisfy Mr. McDonald without making him mad.  So he said nothing.

"Now, it's different with my wife.  If that brother of yours was 30 years older I'd be jealous of him.  She thinks he's about the nicest lad she's ever met.  She's always had a soft spot in her heart for boys.  Always wanted a son of her own, but we never had any family.  That's the biggest disappointment of her life."

Robert had gassed the boat while he was waiting, and as soon as the radios arrived, he took one to his younger brother, and he and Mr. McDonald took off.  A stiff wind was blowing out of the north and a magpie scolded them angrily from a tree near the dock.  But Angus McDonald didn't even hear it, he was so excited to be fishing again.  He had his tackle box open and was searching for a spinner like the one Robert used successfully the day before.

Louis walked down to the dock and checked the boat he and Mrs. McDonald would be using and had a can of pop while he was waiting for Mrs. McDonald.  She rushed into the store at nine o'clock, out of breath and apologetic.

"I shouldn't have kept you waiting, Louis," she said, the words tumbling out.  "But I -" She stopped suddenly and looked about, as though she feared being overheard.  She ran her long fingers through her blond hair and laughed self-consciously.  "I keep forgetting Angus isn't close enough to hear what I'm saying."

"Are we ready to go?" She lowered her voice.  "Can you come to our room with me?"

"I guess so."

"There's something I'd like to have you do for me.  You may think this is strange, but I took off one of my rings and I can't find it."

She paused briefly.

"Angus is so angry with me when this happens.  He says I'd lose my head or one of my arms if they weren't fastened on. He just doesn't understand."

As she talked she took Louis to their room.

"I've been afraid I'd lose the diamond out of this ring. It's loose in the setting." She was so upset the words tumbled out. "Angus told me I should take it to the jeweler before we left, but I was so rushed that last day I didn't have time for anything. I had to choose between getting the ring fixed or having my hair done."

For a moment he stood in the middle of the room, thinking he had never known there were bedrooms as beautiful as that one. The rug was white and the bed was white.  Even the TV was white.

"Well!" she exclaimed, as though she had asked him twenty times to do something and he still hadn't moved.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Look for the ring, of course. Why else would I have you come to our room with me?"

He started looking and it wasn't long until he found it, wedged between the cushion and the side of one of the chairs.

"Is this what you're looking for?" he asked, holding the ring between his thumb and forefinger.

"Louis!" she exclaimed. "You found it!" She started toward him. "I could kiss you!"

He backed toward the door, but she stopped a few feet away and took a ten dollar bill from her purse.

"I want you to have this."

"I didn't do anything except find that ring and it only took a minute."

"You may not know it, but you saved my life. Angus would just kill me if he found out I'd lost one of my rings again."

"Are we ready to go out on the lake now?" he asked.

"Take this," she said, pushing the bill into his shirt pocket. "And let's keep this our little secret - just between the two of us, shall we?"

He shrugged indifferently. It didn't make any difference to him, as long as she didn't ask him to lie about it.

They started out, but Verda McDonald stopped and went back. "I've put the ring in this coin purse," she told him, "and I'm going to take it along so I don't lose it. If I leave it in the room and something happens to it, I'd never forgive myself And Angus wouldn't forgive me, either."

They left the building and went out on the lake, heading in the same general direction Robert and her husband had taken, two hours before. He took her to the place where a narrow creek emptied into the lake from the muskeg and along the shore to where tiger lilies, the provincial flower of Saskatchewan. grew in abundance.

He thought she was going to use up all the film she had, taking picture after picture of them. She got shots of Louis pretending he was holding a flower, when he just had his fingers on the stem. There were shots of him kneeling beside them, looking down at them, and pointing to them.

She took pictures of every type of flower she saw.

"Wait a minute, Louis!" she would cry as though there was some great calamity about to happen if he didn't shut off the motor immediately and glide into shallow water.

On some occasions he could get the boat to shore. On others, the keel stopped them a dozen feet from dry ground and he would have to take off his shoes and socks and try to pull the boat closer. But if he couldn't get her to shore, she still got her pictures.  She jerked off her shoes and socks, rolled up her jeans, and waded ashore.

When she did that he had to be a step or two behind her or she was calling loudly for him to come and help her. The first time he tried to keep from having to follow her in the water she stopped a yard or two from shore and whirled to face him.

"Louis!  I'm disappointed in you!  You're supposed to help me and you're not!"

He sighed, took off his shoes and socks again and got into the cold water. He didn't know what was worse, the icy lake water or the rocks that he was sure would cripple him for life.

"We've already taken a dozen pictures of flowers like those," he protested.

"The pictures we have aren't exactly like those we took at the last place." She bent over and pointed to the nearest flower.  "The petals on these aren't quite as large and the color is distinctly darker.  They're not at all like the flowers at the last place.  The ladies in my Flower Club notice things like that.  I simply have to have pictures of these. . . ."

They finally returned to the lodge shortly after six o'clock.  Robert and Angus had come in an hour and a half earlier.  While Robert filleted McDonald's limit catch, Angus showered and changed clothes.  He strolled down to the filleting shed as young Yazzie finished the last fish and was washing them.

Robert waited for Louis and Mrs. McDonald to come in and the boys went home together.

"Be back here at the same time tomorrow," Mr. McDonald called after them.  "I've promised the cook we'll have enough fish by tomorrow night to treat everyone a fish dinner.  Y'hear?"