n's face twisted into a snarl, and White Bear's heart fell.

"You'll get your white flag up your ass, redskin!"

"You sound just like a white man," said another militiaman. "You sure
you ain't a white man in paint?"

"Listen to me," White Bear said hopelessly. He wanted to say, _If we
don't fight it will save your lives as well as ours._ But how could he
talk to these men, maddened by whiskey and war? His eyes met those of
Little Crow and Three Horses. Again the red-bearded man jerked his hair,
so hard White Bear thought he would pull it out of his scalp. He had to
bite his lip to keep from crying out. Worse than the pain was the
indignity.

Horses splashing water, mud and pebbles on them, long knives shouting
curses and threats, the three Sauk stumbled out of the creek and through
shoulder-high prairie grass into the militia camp.

The sun's last rays fell on flushed, sweating white faces, on glistening
rifle barrels. To White Bear, most of the men looked younger than he.

"Somebody get the colonel," said the man with the red beard. "Tell him
they claim they want to surrender. Might be we could catch old Black
Hawk himself."

The three Sauks' only hope, White Bear thought, was that the commanding
officer might be more willing to listen to them than his men were.

The Sauk and their captors stood in a circle where the grass had been
trampled flat. A short distance away stood supply wagons and tents. The
prairie surrounded them.

Some militiamen went to one wagon on which five kegs with spouts stood,
filled tin cups from the kegs and drank from them. Whiskey, White Bear
thought, seemed to be as important to these men as food.

The sun was down now, and the three stood in twilight, in the midst of
the shouting mob.

"Look alive, you men! It's the colonel!"

The crowd opened up, and two men came through.

One of them, short, skinny, wearing a coonskin cap and a blue officer's
coat, came up to White Bear and peered at him.

"I know you!"

Half his teeth were rotten and the rest were missing. White Bear knew
him too. Eli Greenglove.

"By God, Raoul! I'll be a son of a bitch if it ain't that half-breed
nephew of yours."

And there stood Raoul de Marion, gold epaulets glittering on his broad
shoulders.

At the sight of that broad face with the black mustache, last seen
looking at him over a pistol barrel, White Bear knew his life was about
to end.

_Could my luck be any worse?_

All hope vanished as