wasn't an ambush!" White Bear cried. "There were only five of them,
and they were just there to see what happened to us."

"Well, why didn't you tell us they were out there?" Raoul said, smiling.
"We'd have invited them in for a whiskey."

The coonskin-capped men standing near him guffawed.

Raoul's lips stretched in a grimace. "Eli, Armand, let's shoot these
three redskins."

Greenglove said, "Raoul--Colonel--I still say you ought to think this
over."

"Shut up and do what I say!" Raoul growled. "I want to get this done and
ride after those other Indians."

Men were running for their horses and leaping into the saddle
brandishing rifles. Without leaders or orders, they rode off across the
creek with drunken whoops in the direction Armand had pointed out.

White Bear felt sick as he saw that many of the men who remained were
grinning avidly. How, he wondered, could their deaths give such pleasure
to these men?

Desperate to find help, he searched the ring of men surrounding him for
a face to appeal to. It was already too dark to see expressions clearly.
Hopelessness turned his heart to lead as he saw Otto Wegner turn and
walk away from the crowd. Even though Wegner had always been Raoul's man
and never a friend of his, he felt betrayed.

"All right," said Raoul, staring into White Bear's eyes. "I'll shoot the
mongrel. Eli, you shoot the short one with the flat nose. Armand, you
take the other one."

"'Vec plaisir," said Armand, his teeth showing white in his brown beard
as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

White Bear felt the clench of nausea in his middle. Only pride kept him
from doubling up and vomiting in his terror.

"Don't do this, please," he cried. "We came to you to make peace."

"They mean to kill us," said Little Crow. "Talk no more to them, White
Bear. Do not plead. It is unbecoming a Sauk." White Bear felt a rush of
admiration for the strength and calm in Little Crow's voice. Here,
truly, was a brave.

Little Crow raised his voice in song.

"In your brown blanket, O Earthmaker,
Wrap your son and carry him away.
Fold him again in your body.
Let his bones turn to rocks,
Let his flesh turn to grass.
Give his eyes to the birds,
Give his ears to the deer.
Grow flowers from his heart."

White Bear and Three Horses joined in. There was nothing else to do.
White Bear wanted to die singing, not weeping.

What a miserable death this was, even so! And st