scape.

_Now I understand!_

The realization hit White Bear so suddenly and surprisingly that he sat
up in his saddle. A tree limb flying toward him nearly hit him in the
face. He ducked under it at the last moment.

This was why he had wanted to stay behind with Wolf Paw, even at the
cost of delaying his reunion with Redbird, even at the risk of his life.
It was not just to protect Otto Wegner. The Turtle--or perhaps even
Earthmaker himself--had ordained it. If he had not been there Wolf Paw
would have killed that tall, thin man who came to bury his fallen
comrades.

White Bear remembered the rest of his vision--hundreds of blue-coated
long knives charging and dying. Would this man send those long knives or
their enemy into battle?

It was impossible to puzzle out. He might never know the answer.

They rode over the prairie on the other side of the woods, heading for
Black Hawk's camp. The long knives following them had dropped away,
doubtless afraid, as Wolf Paw had predicted, of an ambush.

Still expecting to feel a tomahawk blade split his spine, White Bear
slowed down.

"So!" Wolf Paw shouted. "You are still a pale eyes!"

"No," White Bear tried to explain. "It was a vision I had. I had to save
that man."

"A vision," Wolf Paw sneered. "I should kill you. If you were not a
shaman-- A warrior needs all his luck. But, since your pale eyes people
are so precious to you, I will kill _them_. You heard what my father
said. I will lead the war party that goes to your pale eyes' home. And
this time you will not be along to save anyone."

They spoke no more. Though the morning sky was bright, a cloud of dread
settled over White Bear. What would become of Nicole, Grandpapa, Frank
and all the people of Victoire and Victor who had been his friends? At
the prompting of some spirit, he had saved the tall, thin man, a
stranger to him. And he had saved Otto Wegner, one of Raoul's hired men.

Was there _nothing_ he could do for his own loved ones?

15

The Blockhouse

The devil's reek of gunpowder seared Nicole's nostrils. Arrows flew over
the trading post palisade to fall in the courtyard, some quivering
upright in the ground. She heard the piercing shrieks of the Indians
above the steady crackling of rifle fire.

She stood in the open doorway of the blockhouse, her body tense with
fear as she watched Frank, up on the catwalk above the main gate. He
crouched behind the pointed logs of the palisade. Fro