62 pages • 2 hours read
John Reynolds GardinerStone Fox
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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BetaChapters 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Meeting”
The Friday night before the race, Doc Smith tells Willy how foolish she thinks he is for using his college fund to enter the race, but she encourages him to win, nonetheless. Grandfather runs out of medicine, and Doc Smith sends Willy to fetch some from Lester. Doc Smith sends Willy on his way with some cinnamon cake. Searchlight pulls Willy on the sled into town, where he picks up his Grandfather’s medicine. Lester is kind to Willy and wishes him luck in the race.
On the way out of town, Willy sees Stone Fox’s Samoyed in an old barn. Willy loves dogs and cannot resist reaching out to pet them. Before he can, however, Stone Fox hits Willy in the face. Willy apologizes, telling him that he did not mean any harm. Willy tells Stone Fox why he has to win and why he is going to beat him. Willy is genuinely sorry that they both cannot win. After Willy leaves, Stone Fox gently pets his dogs. Willy’s eye hurts him that night, and both he and Searchlight are unable to sleep.
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Day”
It is the day of the race, and Willy’s right eye is swollen shut. After feeding Grandfather, Willy and Searchlight head towards town. Willy remembers how he once killed a bird with a slingshot and how guilty he was; “he loved animals too much to be a hunter” (30).
When they get into town, everyone is there. At the start of the race, Little Willy is next to Stone Fox. All the other contestants had good racing records and had won other races, but Willy is confident that they will win. Both he and Searchlight know the route extremely well. Though Willy tries to make small talk with Stone Fox, the Indigenous man remains silent. Everyone, including Little Willy, grows increasingly nervous when the mayor fires a pistol into the sky, and the race begins.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Race”
Searchlight and Little Willy lead the race far in front of the others, while Stone Fox brings up the rear of the pack. Though the path is treacherous, Willy takes the path easily at full speed with his small sled and single dog. Instead of going around the frozen lake, Little Willy and Searchlight cross right over it with the mayor’s permission. No one else takes that risk. Little Willy is far ahead of the others, and at the end of the first five miles, he can no longer see the others. Willy worries for the last five, knowing that Stone Fox will likely catch up.
Willy and Searchlight pass Doc Smith’s cabin and then their farmhouse. They see Grandfather peering out at them through the window, and though Willy wants to stop and see him, Grandfather waves him on. Willy is smiling and crying as they continue on, overjoyed that Grandfather is better. During this time, Stone Fox begins to gain on the other participants. Little Willy fails to look back, and when he finally does, he realizes that Stone Fox is close behind him. Willy is furious at himself for not having noticed, but he urges Searchlight forwards. Searchlight and the lead Samoyed are nose to nose, but as they head back into town, Searchlight surges ahead.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Finish Line”
They are a hundred feet from the finish line when Searchlight’s heart bursts, and she dies. She does not suffer. Searchlight and Willy tumble forward and are only 10 feet from the finish line. The cheering crowd goes silent. Doc Smith tries to run out to Willy but stops short. Everyone is “shocked and helpless” (36).
Stone Fox comes to a stop next to Willy, and the little boy asks the man if Searchlight is dead. Stone Fox feels for Searchlight’s heartbeat and feels nothing. Little Willy brushes the snow off of his beloved dog’s back, praising her for all she’s done. Instead of finishing the race himself, Stone Fox silently urges the boy forwards and fires his rifle into the air to pull the other participants up short. Stone Fox speaks for the first time, pointing at the line in the snow that he’s drawn with the toe of his moccasin. He threatens to shoot anyone who crosses the line. Everyone watches in silence as Little Willy carries Searchlight over the finish line.
Chapters 7-10 Analysis
Chapters 7 through 10 follow Little Willy into the dogsled race. The common themes of helplessness and sacrifice continue throughout this section as well and is undoubtedly most representative of these ideas. Searchlight’s sacrifice is the emotional end that also marks the official loss of Willy’s innocence. Searchlight was born on the same day as Little Willy and was his constant companion throughout his childhood. She represents the innocence and naivete of childhood. Willy and Searchlight are connected; they seem to have an impossible bond, as evidenced the night before the race:
And when little Willy couldn’t sleep, Searchlight couldn’t sleep. Both tossed and turned for hours, and whenever little Willy looked over to see if Searchlight was asleep, she’d just belying there with her eyes wide open, staring back at him (29).
Though she has protected him, plowed the fields for him, and is ultimately the one who pulls him through the final race, Searchlight is unable to protect him from the ceaseless onslaught of time and the brutal truths of reality. No matter how much Searchlight, and later, Stone Fox, sacrifice for Willy, the little boy will now be profoundly aware of the world’s many cruelties. The loss of childhood innocence is unavoidable.
Stone Fox’s refusal to speak to the descendants of the colonizers who oppressed his people is a rebellious act; his refusal to acknowledge them calls attention to the cruelties and injustices that have been perpetrated upon his people. Stone Fox thus becomes as mute and voiceless as the colonizers have made the indigenous people.
Though Stone Fox does not give his life for Little Willy, his respect for the boy and Searchlight does compel him to break his vow of silence. Stone Fox’s decision to break this silence reflects his later choice to let Willy win the race. This act of kindness, of sacrifice, is one of the only ones that Willy receives from an adult throughout the novel. Though rumors have passed throughout the town of Stone Fox’s violence, ruthlessness, and single-minded focus on winning the race, the indigenous man is the only adult who actually forsakes his own interests to help Little Willy.
