nd Nancy, Saukenuk
and Victoire, Old Man's Creek and the Bad Axe.

When he was done, Ford thanked him quietly and sat down. It was
Bennett's turn.

He shuffled toward Auguste, fixing him with small eyes that glinted with
malice.

"We have to take your word for it that you spoke for peace in the
councils of the Sauk and Fox Indians, don't we? And we have to take your
word that you went to the camp of Colonel de Marion's spy battalion on
an errand of peace, don't we?"

"That's right," Auguste said bitterly. "Because all my witnesses are
dead."

"Don't try to get us to feel sorry for you," Bennett rasped. "This
courtroom is full of people who've seen loved ones stabbed, shot,
scalped, cut to pieces, burnt to ashes. At the hands of your Indians."
He raised his voice to a shout. "And while that was happening, you were
behind the red fiends! Urging them on to kill and kill some more!" He
turned away, face twisted in disgust. "I have no more questions for
you."

Cooper said, "Does the defense have any more witnesses?"

"No, Your Honor," said Ford, and Auguste's heart sank as he walked back
to his seat. Bennett, he felt, had finished him with those few sentences
reminding people what the Sauk had done to them.

Auguste turned to Ford, whose round face was blank, unreadable. No hope
there. Ford had done his best, Auguste was sure. But he had no more
chance against the hatred here in Victor than Black Hawk's band had
against the armies of the United States.

_I am going to be hanged._

"Hold it there!" called a voice from the doorway of the courtroom. "He
_has_ got two more witnesses."

Auguste saw a tall, mustached man thumping up from the back of the court
with the aid of a crutch and a peg leg. Beside him a skinny man with a
small head and a gap-toothed grin shuffled over the plank floor. A rifle
hung from one long arm.

It took him a moment to recognize Otto Wegner and Eli Greenglove.

Alert, wary, he watched them come up the aisle between the spectators'
chairs.

Cooper raised a hand in warning, said, "Mr. Greenglove, you'll have to
put that rifle down before you come any farther."

"So be it," said Greenglove, handing the rifle to one of Jefferson
Davis's corporals who had risen to bar his way. "I just needed it to
make sure I got this far alive."

Ford came over to Auguste and said in a low voice, "I take it these men
are offering to testify in your defense. Do you want them?"

"I think Wegner must