nd took the
knife from her hand and held it out, handle first, to the blue-coat.

She understood why Wolf Paw had forced her to give up the knife, but she
was angry with him.

"That was White Bear's knife from his father," she said.

"The long knife would have killed you," Wolf Paw said. "We cannot fight
them." She saw the hopelessness in his eyes, and she put her hand
reassuringly on his arm. When the long knives ordered them to get up and
start walking, he walked beside her.

She was hungry all day long. A food wagon followed the party. Three
times a day the soldiers got meat and bread from it, but the Sauk got
only corn mash on tin plates, which they washed out in the river and
returned to the food wagon. Several times a day they were allowed to
stop and drink from the river. Redbird prayed that her milk would hold
out for Floating Lily.

She sang a walking song, to try to forget her pain and to help her put
one aching foot in front of the other.

"We walk this trail, following the deer.
Sing as you walk, oh, braves and squaws!
Last night I dreamed my moccasins
Struck fire as they touched the ground."

When she raised her voice others joined in. After a while even Wolf Paw
began to sing in a deep voice.

Five blue-coated long knives rode before the Sauk and another five
behind them. Redbird looked around at her people, a hundred or so,
mostly women and children. The men numbered about twenty. Tired, hungry,
sick, broken in spirit. All of them on foot now, the last of their
horses having been taken away at Fort Crawford.

She remembered Owl Carver's parting words to her. _You must be the
spirit walker for the British Band._ And Wolf Paw had said that she had
the courage and wisdom to face death on the trail.

Whatever this remnant of her people might have to meet now, she promised
herself that she would use all her strength to help them through it.

They came to a smaller river, the Fever, that flowed into the Great
River. A flatboat to take travelers across was drawn up on shore. The
long knives had angry words with the men who would pole the flatboat.
Redbird understood that the boatmen would not carry her people. Let them
swim, their gestures said. But the river was too deep and its current
too swift for these half-starved, exhausted people.

While the long knives argued with the boatmen, more pale eyes came to
watch. They must have a town nearby. Redbird felt a chill of fear at the