oul's
eyes and his longing for vengeance made his blood feel like molten metal
in his veins.

The jurymen came in through a side door. Robert McAllister, foreman of
the jury, glanced at Auguste, then handed David Cooper a folded piece of
paper.

"He looked at you," Ford whispered. "It's an old tale among lawyers that
if members of the jury have found the defendant guilty, they don't look
at him."

Cooper read the note and sighed loudly, as if he found the message
burdensome. Then he took goose quill and ink and wrote a note of his
own. McAllister watched him write, looking over his shoulder, sighed as
heavily as Cooper had, looked at Auguste again. After a moment he nodded
and took the judge's note back upstairs.

"Well," said Judge Cooper to the courtroom at large, "it seems the
jury's a pretty fair distance from a verdict. They can't agree on a lot
of things. So, I've given orders that they stay upstairs and keep at it.
It looks like we won't have a guilty or not guilty until tomorrow. The
prisoner will go back upstairs to his cell. Court will open at nine
o'clock in the morning."

Auguste heard the rear door of the courtroom slam and knew without
looking around that Raoul had left.

That night Auguste lay on his corn-husk mattress wondering whether he
should try to run away when they took him out. To be shot while trying
to escape might be more honorable than hanging. He wished he could see
Redbird and Eagle Feather one last time. He wished Nancy would come to
visit him. Or at least Nicole, Grandpapa or Frank. But Lieutenant Davis
said that for the prisoner's safety no one would be allowed into the
village hall tonight.

He heard a key turning in his door lock. He climbed to his feet.

"Come on," said Davis quickly. "We're taking you out of here."

_They've come to kill me_, Auguste thought. It would not be the first
time an inconvenient Indian was "shot while trying to escape." But his
shaman's insight told him Davis was as trustworthy as any Sauk.

"Why? Before the verdict?"

"They did reach a verdict today. You are found not guilty."

Not guilty! Joy flooded through him as he stood, so amazed that he could
not move, staring at the open cell door.

When he had recovered enough to move, Auguste followed Davis out of the
village hall, to where the two corporals waited with horses in the
silent street. The river rippled black and silver in the light of a
three-quarter moon. The Ioway bluffs opposite w