oing.

Had she been wrong not to stay with White Bear, as he had begged her to?
She missed him so much. Tears came to her eyes. She hoped Wolf Paw and
Eagle Feather would not see her crying, and she wiped her eyes quickly.

She felt like jumping from this boat and swimming back to shore. If she
drowned in the Great River, even that would be better than being carried
away from White Bear.

She told herself she had made up her mind. She was determined to be a
Sauk for the rest of her days. And Eagle Feather would be a Sauk.

_White Bear is wrong to stay behind, even for all that land._

Eagle Feather gripped her arm. "Do not be afraid, Mother. The pale eyes
will not hurt us today." His blue eyes were sad. He must have noticed
her misery.

Wolf Paw smiled faintly. "No, today they only want to be rid of us."

Eagle Feather said, "One day Earthmaker will give us a medicine so
strong that the long knives' guns will not hurt us."

Redbird smiled at her son. "May it be you who finds that medicine."

_We can hope for that. Now that we have lost so much, the spirits might
grant us new powers that will help us to resist the pale eyes._

Of one thing she was sure, White Bear's way was not a trail that the
people should travel. For a Sauk to become a pale eyes was a kind of
death.

_We are Sauk, or we are nothing. White Bear is no longer a Sauk. My
husband is dead._

She turned back to Wolf Paw and Eagle Feather. She did not like to see
Wolf Paw's hair hanging loose around his head, his slumped shoulders. He
had always stood so straight. Before the people at Victor killed
Floating Lily.

She put her hand on his back and stroked it with a circular motion, and
he straightened his shoulders. As he looked at her a light dawned in his
eyes.

She must get him to shave his head again, to put the red crest back in
place. The people needed a new leader, a true leader. Black Hawk had
been wrong too many times, and He Who Moves Alertly would do whatever
the pale eyes told him to do. Wolf Paw would help her heal the people.

_How I hated him the night he mocked White Bear, putting a woman's dress
on him. But he has suffered much since then, and he is a wiser man now._

Eagle Feather was standing at the rail looking across the purple river
at the winter-gray hills on the Ioway shore. Redbird moved to stand
behind him and put her hands on his small, square shoulders. He held
himself very straight.

Eagle Feather said suddenly