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you?"

    "Yes, the Ludwigs are my aunt and uncle," Erica explained with a nervous smile. "If I'm not there, they will brmg it home to me. Thank youl" she called over her shoulder as she hurried away. She doubted the Indian would find Mark's letter, or that he would bother to bring it to her, but the thought of his walking into the store and asking for her made her laugh all the way home.
    The Indian returned to his fishing, but he was too deeply puzzled by the woman's behavior to regard their meeting in a humorous light. Pretty young women should not wander the woods alone. Indian maidens knew that, didn't white women? He did not recall seeing a letter the previous afternoon and still thought it had merely been an excuse to see him again. Yet even when she had seen him, the woman had not seemed pleased. What a strange person she was: pretty, but possessing no sense at all.
    The next afternoon the Indian was restless. He kept expecting the woman to return, and when she did not he was more disappointed than he cared to admit. Thinking he had been out hunting and fishing alone too long, he told himself he had merely been hungry for a companion of any sort, even a reluctant yellow-haired woman. Deciding that that was a sign it was time to go home, he erased all traces of his camp but on an impulse returned to the spot where he had first met the woman. Simply to satisfy his own mind, he gave the area another thorough search, moving downstream to cover more ground than he had with her.
    When he actually found the letter he was shocked to discover the woman had been telling the truth. The envelope was soiled, one comer chewed off by an ambitious squirrel who had apparently carried it some distance from where he had found it before discovering it wasn't something tasty to eat. The Indian turned the envelope over in his hands. It was damp near the river at night, and the ink had run so the name and address were too blurred to read. He knew it was not polite to read a letter meant for someone else, but since he could not make out the name, how could he be sure this was the woman's letter?
    His only choice clear, the Indian removed the stationery, which, while somewhat wrinkled, was in better condition than the envelope. He had learned to read and write

    English from a well-meaning missionary who had wished to convert him to Christianity. The religion of the white man did not interest him, but he had known even as a child that it would be wise to learn all he could about the white men who seemed determined to overrun his world. Squatting down by the river's edge, he read the letter with deliberate care, pronouncing each of the words in his mind. He had not heard the name Erica before, but spoke it aloud several times before deciding he liked it. Finding precisely what the woman had said it was, a letter from a man who app>eared to be no more than a friend, he returned the stationery to the tattered envelope and straightened up.
    He had said he would return the letter if he found it. He could toss it in the river, burn it, or take it home with him, and the pretty blond woman named Erica would never know he had it. He would know, however, and he had told her he would bring it to her. Why he had made such a ridiculous promise he didn' t know. The question now was whether or not it would be wise to honor it.
    The following day. Erica had just cut ten yards of lace for a customer when the usual hum of conversation that filled the busy store came to an abrupt end. As she handed the woman her neatly wrapped package and change. Erica saw what had caused the sudden silence. The Indian she had met in the forest had walked through the door and was making his way toward her. His expression was neither friendly nor menacing, but the rifle he carried in his right hand alarmed her. As her customer hurried away, she looked up at the man and tried her best to smile. "Good morning."
    "I neSl some shells for my rifle," the Indian replied.
    Erica was