e to
trade too many of their young men's lives for it.

"Last summer the long knives surrounded us and drove us out of Saukenuk.
But that was because we were not ready to fight, and some of us were not
_willing_ to fight."

Black Hawk looked pointedly at He Who Moves Alertly, who sat
expressionless, as if unaware of Black Hawk's disapproving gaze. His
face was round and ruddy, like the full moon when it first appears
above the horizon. He wore his glossy black hair long under an
impressive buffalo headdress with gleaming horns, and had wrapped
himself in a buffalo-hide robe painted with sunbursts.

Black Hawk said, "Next summer, it will be different. I have had messages
from the Winnebago and the Potawatomi promising to help us if the long
knives attack us. The Chippewa, up in the north, say they want to help
us."

A burning log split in two with a noise like a gunshot, and the halves
fell deeper into the fire with a shower of sparks.

Looking over the heads of those seated near him, White Bear saw columns
of smoke from a dozen or more other campfires rising into the late
afternoon sky. Around those campfires, feasting and gossiping, sat most
of the people of the British Band and their guests from other Sauk and
Fox bands, as well as some Winnebago, Potawatomi and Kickapoo braves.
What was being decided here now would mean life or death to all who
chose to follow these leaders.

Black Hawk said, "The pale eyes say we sold our land. I say that land
cannot be sold. Earthmaker gives land to those who need it to live on,
to grow food on, to hunt on, as he gives us air and water.

"The land has been good to us. It has given us game and fish, fruit and
berries. It has let us grow our squash, beans, pumpkins and corn on it,
and bury our mothers and fathers in it. The pale eyes are destroying the
land, cutting down the trees, fencing off the prairie and plowing it up.
The land is the mother of us all. When a man's mother is dishonored, he
must fight. Earthmaker will give us this victory, because he is our
father and he loves us."

With a chill that did not come from the air, White Bear remembered the
words of the Turtle: _Earthmaker bestows evil as well as good on his
children._

White Bear prayed his own prayer to Earthmaker: that he not be asked to
speak to this gathering.

Black Hawk lifted his rasping voice in a shout. "I, Black Hawk, raise
the war whoop!"

He threw out his chest, lifted his head, and let loo