uld never be hurt.

Arrows flew thick and fast. Raoul and his men, reloading from the
cartridge and shot cases they had carried ashore, kept up a steady
answering fire.

He felt shame smouldering in his spine and along his limbs. What a
damned fool he'd been. He had been so sure that storm of grapeshot from
the _Victory_ would finish off the Indians. He had expected this to be
nothing more than a stroll through the forest, counting the dead and
killing off the helpless remnant. Instead it seemed there were plenty of
Sauk warriors left, very much alive, fierce as wolverines. And he and
his men were trapped at the tip of this damned island with no place to
retreat but the river. In the river they'd be helpless under enemy
arrows and bullets, just like the redskins who had tried earlier to swim
away.

The Sauk war cries had fallen silent, and the shots and arrows had
stopped. Raoul peered through a chink in the tree trunks piled before
him. All he could see was dark green boughs with no sign of movement.

"What you figger they're doing now?" Levi said. He had his six pistols
laid out on a log in front of him.

"Probably getting ready to charge us," said Raoul.

How long before the _Victory_ got back? From here at the south end of
the island he could see the white steamship anchored off the riverbank,
her two black stacks giving off little white puffs, her side paddle
wheels motionless. She looked very small and very far away. No chance
Helmer or Kingsbury could see that Raoul and his men were fighting for
their lives here.

What were the men, Levi and Armand and the others, thinking? Again and
again, it seemed, his decisions cost lives. He remembered Old Man's
Creek--de Marion's Run--and he felt his face get fiery hot at the shame
of it.

And then there was Eli Greenglove's bitterness that night they parted,
accusing him of putting Clarissa and the boys in harm's way. And
something about a shock Raoul would get--what had Eli meant by that?

He heard a splash and turned to look behind him. His heart stopped. A
near-naked Indian was rushing at him out of the water, scalping knife
high.

Hands trembling, Raoul had barely time to roll over on his back and fire
his rifle up at the screaming warrior. Sunlight glinted off the long
steel blade. There was a moment of black terror after the rifle went
off. Nothing seemed to happen. His hands had been shaking too hard, he
thought, to aim well.

But then the Sauk droppe