hite faces, angry eyes, coonskin caps and straw
hats were whirling about the three emissaries in the middle of the
creek. Rifles and pistols were pointing at them from every side. Little
Crow, his face tight, held the white flag high with both hands.

"We surrender!" White Bear shouted. "We are not armed. We have come to
talk to General Atkinson."

"Listen to that, he's talking English," a blond boy exclaimed.

Another man yelled, "Shoot 'em. Then let 'em surrender."

White Bear's knees trembled against his horse's flanks. These were not
regular U.S. government soldiers, but the volunteers, the armed settlers
who had come out in answer to their governor's call. They would not wait
for orders from their commanders. They would do whatever they felt like
doing.

A red-bearded man stuck his face in White Bear's. "Get down off that
horse, Injun! Now!" His shout blew a stink of whiskey into White Bear's
face.

Others joined the outcry. "Get off them horses!"

"Ought to put a bullet in them right here in the creek."

"Look at them black faces. I thought they was niggers at first."

"Not even useful like niggers, damn redskins."

The man with the red beard grabbed White Bear's arm and jerked him half
out of his saddle. White Bear slid down from his horse.

He stood up to his knees in the cold, rushing water of Old Man's Creek.

"We want to surrender," he said again. "We want to talk to your
officers."

"Just shut up!" the red-bearded man roared, eyes rolling drunkenly.

White Bear felt a man grab him from behind. A rope scratched his wrists
and tightened around them till the bones were crushed together.

He turned to see whether Little Crow and Three Horses were all right.
The militiamen had bound them too. Both braves' black-painted faces were
expressionless, but White Bear read fear in their eyes and in the set of
their mouths--the same fear he felt, and tried not to show.

The red-bearded man leaned down from his saddle and grabbed a handful of
White Bear's long hair. He jerked on it, dragging White Bear toward the
bank. White Bear stumbled on the stony creekbed, bruising his feet
through his moccasins.

"You wanna see our officers? Then step along!"

What had happened to the white flag? Without it, what did they have to
show that they had come in peace?

"Will you bring our white flag?" he called desperately to a clean-shaven
man wearing spectacles, who looked a little calmer than the others.

The ma