t. Even though he'd hired
half a dozen assistants, it was a wonder he'd found time to write and
publish his newspaper.

Judge David Cooper, a man with a square, muscular face and piercing blue
eyes, sat at a long table with the flags of the United States and the
state of Illinois on stands behind him. A carpenter's mallet lay on the
table. Probably borrowed from Frank, Auguste thought. He had a vague
memory of Cooper's being present and saying something to Raoul the day
he'd been driven from Victoire. Auguste stood as Cooper read out the
charge of complicity in the murder of 223 citizens of the state of
Illinois by the British Band of the Sauk and Fox Indian tribes.

Behind Auguste sat three blue-coats, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis and his
two corporals. The prosecutor, Justus Bennett, and his assistant
occupied a third table. The courtroom being not quite finished, the
twelve jurymen sat on one side of the room in two pews carried over from
the Presbyterian church.

Auguste knew only three of the jurors--Robert McAllister, a farmer whose
family had survived Wolf Paw's raid by hiding in their root cellar; Tom
Slattery, the blacksmith; and Jean-Paul Kobell, a stableman from
Victoire. He had no reason to think any of those three bore him any
special ill will, though they might have good reason to hate any Sauk.
The others he knew not at all, which meant they must have moved to
Victor since he left.

Behind the trial participants about fifty citizens of Smith County were
crowded into the courtroom, sitting in chairs or on benches they had
carried into the village hall themselves. More stood along the walls.

During the first hour of the trial Raoul de Marion, the first witness
for the prosecution, testified. He lounged in a chair beside the judge's
table.

Auguste sat in a cold fury as he heard, for the first time, an account
of the war between the British Band and the people of Illinois as many
pale eyes must have seen it. A murdering band of savages had invaded the
state. The brave volunteers had pursued them, endured the loss of
comrades, but eventually had triumphed, administering a righteous
retaliation by exterminating most of the invaders.

Bennett, a lean man whose rounded shoulders gave him a serpentine look,
turned to Thomas Ford. "Your witness, sir."

Ford, very erect in contrast to Bennett, stood up and walked toward
Raoul. "Mr. de Marion, why on the night of September fifteenth, 1831,
did you offer a r