ducking into their
tents.

"No--wait--" Nancy cried. She wanted to tell them not to be afraid, but
didn't know how. Redbird was the only one she could talk to. And _fear_
was not a word Redbird had taught her.

A man was standing in front of her. His eyes were empty, his face thin
and dirty. He seemed familiar. He held out his hands. He seemed to be
saying, "Here I am. Take me."

All at once Nancy recognized Wolf Paw.

His hair had grown out, hanging down in short black strands all around
his head. But at last she recognized that noble face that--much though
she'd hated him at first--had always reminded her of the engravings
she'd seen of Roman statues.

She understood what he was trying to tell her. If she'd come to find the
murderer of her father, the man who had kidnapped her, here he was. He
was at her mercy.

He seemed to have lost everything else, she thought, but not his
courage.

"Is that Injun threatening you, ma'am?" called the sergeant from the
shelter of the buggy.

"Not at all," she said, and smiled at Wolf Paw. She felt heartsick to
see how the splendid warrior had declined into a shabby spectre.

She tried to tell Wolf Paw, in the mixture of Sauk, English and gesture
that she had used with Redbird, that she had not come here to avenge
herself on him, that all she wanted was to find Redbird.

But then Redbird was standing before her.

Like Wolf Paw, she had changed so much that for a moment Nancy wasn't
sure this _was_ Redbird. She was as thin as a fence rail, and those
colorful things Nancy remembered her wearing, the feathers and beads,
the dyed quills, the painted figures on her dress, all were gone. She
clutched a coarse brown blanket around her shoulders. Her head was bare.
Water dripped from the fringe of hair across her forehead and poured
from her braids. She wore, not the doeskin clothing Nancy remembered,
but a torn gray cotton dress that was too big for her and dirty around
the bottom edge. Looking down, Nancy saw that Redbird's feet were bare,
her toes sinking into the mud.

Nancy felt warm tears mingling with the cold rain on her face as she saw
Redbird smiling at her.

"Redbird, I am glad to see my sister," Nancy said in their special
language. "Where is your wickiup?"

Redbird spoke to Wolf Paw in Sauk words too low and rapid for Nancy to
follow. He grunted assent and trudged through the mud toward a distant
tent. Watching him, Nancy felt pity at his rounded shoulders and