Summary

Niska's first person narration takes over this chapter as she is given hope when she sees she has made Xavier smile with her story of smacking the nun. She watches him drift to sleep as she steers the canoe in the afternoon. His sleep is restless again and she decides to tell him another story. This is not a happy story but Niska knows it is a story he needs to hear and she hopes that there is medicine in the tale that can slip into Xavier unnoticed.

Niska tells this story by directly talking to Xavier in certain parts as she does when she first starts to tell it. She asks Xavier if he remembers the sunny day after a large snowfall. Xavier was still young then and it was the day a bush Indian from the turtle clan...