be I can shoot a frog."

Once the boys were gone, she said to Yellow Hair, "We take bath." Yellow
Hair smiled gratefully.

As they waded naked into the greenish, murky water, Redbird eyed Yellow
Hair's body, so different from a Sauk woman's. She remembered how
hungrily the braves had stared at Yellow Hair when Wolf Paw's wife
stripped her before the tribe.

Yet it was easy to imagine that such pale skin was a sign of sickness.
Yellow Hair's face and hands were somewhat tan, but every other part of
her was white as milk. Her ribs were showing, a sign of the hunger they
were all suffering. Still, her breasts were round, with pretty pink
nipples. Her legs were long, and her buttocks curved out sharply; those
of Sauk women were flatter. Even though the hair under her arms and
between her legs was light in color, she had an abundance of it, much
more than the fine tufts of black hair Redbird had in those places. She
had undone her braids, and her hair fell like a golden curtain down her
back halfway to her waist.

_What a beautiful creature she is!_

What an evil, stupid thing it would have been if Running Deer and the
others had been allowed to cut her to bits and burn her.

A man might find Yellow Hair's differences from Sauk women attractive. A
man such as White Bear.

She felt no fear that the pale eyes woman would take White Bear away
from her. He showed many times every day, with his looks, with his
movements, with his words, that Redbird, and not Yellow Hair, was first
in his heart.

Redbird waded into the lake until the water was up to her breasts and
her feet were sinking in the ooze. Then she pushed herself forward and
dog-paddled through the reeds. It was wonderful to let the water take
the weight of her belly off her hips and legs, a welcome relief to feel
so cool.

In the night in the wickiup she often heard Yellow Hair moving or
weeping softly. And that meant that Yellow Hair must have heard White
Bear and Redbird loving each other in bed. This was only to be expected.
When families slept all together in lodges and wickiups, the children
early came to know how their parents took pleasure together during the
night, and were unembarrassed when they grew up and their turn came. But
how did the sounds of White Bear and Redbird together make Yellow Hair
feel?

White Bear had said that Yellow Hair had wanted him when he lived among
the pale eyes. And lately Redbird and White Bear had been sleeping apart