willing to come here," said Frank. "Not after what
these people did to them."

"This one will," said Nancy.

* * * * *

A heavy, cold rain drummed on the leather top of Nancy's buggy. Driven
by a sergeant, the little carriage splashed into the Sauk camp that
huddled beside the wooden walls of Fort Armstrong. A dozen peaked army
tents, their grayish-white canvas sagging under the rain in a muddy
field, were all Nancy could see. There were no people in sight. "I don't
know how you're going to find anybody here, ma'am," said the sergeant.
Nancy judged him to be a few years older than she was. His name was
Benson. He had tomato-red cheeks and a blond mustache so thick that it
completely hid his mouth.

Dark faces started to appear at the tent flaps. She wanted to weep as
she saw the misery of the women and children who slowly came out, some
of them holding blankets over their heads, to stand in the mud and stare
at her.

_Shouldn't I be glad to see the Sauk brought so low?_

Didn't she owe it to her father, Nancy asked herself, to rejoice
in the fate of the people who had murdered him? And what about
the horrid things they'd done to her? So proud they'd been, the
yellow-and-red-streaked faces, the feathers in their hair, the
day Wolf Paw led them to burn and kill at Victor. Now they huddled,
what was left of them, in the rain in a muddy field in tattered army
tents.

But she felt no pleasure seeing the Sauk in final defeat. Through
Auguste, they had become her people.

She felt suddenly uncomfortable sitting in the shelter of the buggy's
top, staring down at the sodden figures in the rain. If they could stand
in the rain, she decided, she could too. She jumped down.

"Ma'am!" the sergeant called, sounding alarmed. But he made no move to
follow.

In an instant her bonnet, her shawl, her dress, were all sopping. But
she didn't care, because the people she was looking at were soaked too.
She looked for familiar faces. The people standing before her seemed
made of mud. From head to foot they were a dull brown color.

"It is Yellow Hair!" She understood the Sauk words and looked around to
see who had spoken, but all she saw were black eyes wide with sudden
fear. Of course they all remembered her as the pale eyes woman who had
been kidnapped and nearly killed, and who had escaped. They must think
she had come to accuse and punish.

Yes, now that they knew her, they were backing away,