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to agree quickly.”
    Fawn took me along with her to gather mushrooms. The leaves on the trees were no larger than the ears of a mouse. The sun poured down onto a carpet of wildflowers. They were pushing up through drifts of lastyear’s leaves. “We must look for mushrooms,” Fawn said, “like this one and this.” Fawn snatched at two mushrooms poking up from the ground. They were the exact color of the brown leaves.
    I reached for some bright orange mushrooms, but Fawn stopped me. “You must be careful,” she warned. “Those mushrooms will cause death.” After a little while I became better at finding the good mushrooms. But I decided to leave the gathering to Fawn.
    Tired from our searching, we sat down to rest in a patch of flattened grass. My friendship with Fawn was often a silent one. Fawn waits a long time between words. Only the songs of the returning birds made the woods noisy. Suddenly we saw a movement in the tall grass. We held our breaths, waiting to see what was hidden there.
    What we saw were three puppies. Except for a patch of gray on their heads, the pups were all black. As we watched, they tussled with one another, touching noses, nipping atone another’s ears, and tumbling over one another. A gray shadow moved through the grass. The shadow limped. It was our wolf! I jumped up and ran toward the pups, anxious to hold them. I was sure the wolf would welcome us. But as I came closer, its hackles stiffened. I heard a low, threatening growl and then the wolf lunged at me. It would surely have snapped its jaws around my wrist if Fawn had not pulled me away. We ran toward the Indian village as fast as we could, never looking behind us.
    On the ride back home with Papa I told him what had happened. He gave me a stern look. “You must never get near wild animals, Libby, especially when they have young ones.”
    “But the wolf must have known us. She was
our
wolf.”
    “The wolf was doing just what animals are supposed to do,” Papa said. “She was protecting her young.” I thought of the picture in the Bible of the Garden of Eden. In the picturethe wild animals all have smiles on their faces and follow Adam and Eve around like puppies. Now I understood that our woods was no Garden of Eden.
    We did not see the wolf or her pups again. I thought of them often that summer. The pups would be learning to hunt. Little by little, their land would be taken from them. One day like Ke che gaw baw, the wolves would seek wilder land and disappear from here forever.
    Ke che gaw baw and White Deer were to be married. The tribe invited us to come to the marriage ceremony.
    On the day of the wedding we traveled through sunlight. The small pale green leaves, budding on the trees, hardly made any shade at all. “Happy is the bride the sun shines on,” said Mama. She had brought her paints. Our wedding gift to White Deer and Ke che gaw baw would be their portraits.
    We arrived to find the whole village astir.Earlier that morning White Deer and Ke che gaw baw had gone to the church in La Croix to be married. Now it was time for a large feast.
    Papa talked with the chief and Sanatua while Mama got out her paints. Many of the Indians gathered around her to watch. I went to find Fawn. She was with the women who were preparing the feast. Sticks had been split at the top and fish tucked into the slots.

    The sticks were stuck into the ground next to the fire to cook. Grouse and ducks also roasted on sticks. They gave off a funny smell, for they were cooked with their feathers on. Haunches of deer were roasting. Corn and squash were cooking in maple syrup. There was so much food that I did not see how even the whole village could eat it all. But they did and I helped.
    Because everyone was so full, the dancingbegan slowly. But soon the drums beat faster. There was much good-natured teasing of White Deer and Ke che gaw baw. Only White Deer’s mother and father were quiet. They knew that in another day their daughter would