was in the
mob that attacked the Sauk prisoners. We don't want any of them sitting
on the jury."

As Frank and Ford discussed trial tactics, Auguste gazed around at this
dark little chamber on the second floor of the village hall. It might be
his last home on earth. The only window was a square barred hole high up
on the south wall, too small to let much light in--or for a man to climb
out through. This morning a light rain falling outside spattered through
the window, and the cell felt damp and cool.

_When Frank built this cell, he could never have thought his own nephew
would be a prisoner in it._

"We have a power of work to do, Auguste," Ford interrupted his thoughts.
"So far I can't find anyone who confirms your story of what happened at
Old Man's Creek. This Otto Wegner fellow whose life you saved, he and
his family have moved down to the Texas country in Mexico."

Frank said, "We do have two people who'll testify that you protected
them and never went on any war parties while they were prisoners of the
British Band--Miss Hale and the boy Woodrow."

At the mention of Nancy's name Auguste felt a wrench in his heart. He
knew that she had stayed in Victor, teaching in a new schoolhouse Frank
had built for her on the site of her father's church. Her absence in the
week he had been here had hurt him deeply.

"Frank," he said, "why hasn't Nancy come to see me?"

Thomas Ford said, "Miss Hale is a very bright young lady, and instead of
rushing down here to visit you when you arrived, she waited till I got
here and then she asked me what she should do. I told her that there
must not be even a breath of a suggestion that there was anything
between you two. If people believed she had, ah, been intimate with you,
they'd consider her a loose woman--doubly so because you're an
Indian--and they wouldn't listen to a word she said."

"I understand," Auguste said, feeling bitter, but also feeling that the
load of grief he'd borne since arriving at Victor had lightened a
little. Nancy had not forgotten him, as he'd feared she might after she
got back among whites. He felt shame that he had even imagined she might
turn against him. And when the trial started, at least he would see her
again.

* * * * *

The smell of fresh-cut wood pervaded the courtroom on the first floor of
the village hall, as it did Auguste's cell. Frank must have worked seven
days a week since last June, Auguste though