have to leave school. However, Mark has other plans. He sends the older children in Gordon's family to the residential school with Gordon while the younger ones are cared for in the village. As Gordon leaves for the white man's school, the author writes of Gordon, "he was leaving his boyhood behind and would not find it again." 

Gordon feels at home in the white world. When he returns home, he is wearing a "city suit," and his face is characterized by "discipline that marked the size of his battle" (page 121). In other words, it is evident by Gordon's face that he will fight to assimilate into the white world, even if this quest is very difficult. Keetah joins Gordon in the white man's world but returns home again. She knows that Gordon would prefer to marry a white woman and that she is "too Indian for Gordon" (page 138). Gordon's role in the novel is to become educated and push for assimilation into the white world, while Keetah stays in the village and marries Jim. 

Gordon is a young man who lives in the village. He is attracted to the fast pace of the big cities. He feels at home when he leaves the village to go to school, and it is clear to everyone that he will not return for any length of time.

Gordon is engaged to Keetah, a girl who lives in the same village, but their relationship is doomed. As Jim, another villager, puts it,

Gordon is Che-kwa-la which means fast moving water, and Keetah is the pool.

Keetah misses her village when she has to leave for school. Gordon and Keetah move to the city, but Keetah returns when she becomes pregnant. She does not tell Gordon about his child. This way she can keep a part of Gordon with her, but he can still leave the village. She and Jim make plans to marry, and Jim is glad to take Gordon and Keetah's child as his own.