--Mr. de Marion--I'd like
you to accompany me to my office for a private word."

Now Auguste's heart pounded as he followed Jackson, accompanied by two
soldiers, up a flight of stairs. He sensed that Jackson must have
demands in mind, and knew that because of what he had been--_old Indian
killer_--the Sauk would not be helped by his yielding to those demands.
But what might refusal mean? Imprisonment? Death?

Jackson's office was a large room, well lit by big glass windows, where
the President's polished oak desk was piled high with papers. The two
soldiers stationed themselves on either side of the door, and as Auguste
entered behind Jackson he saw a guard with a bayonet-mounted rifle
standing like a wooden statue in one corner of the room. Auguste
wondered whether there was always a guard there, or only when Jackson
had an Indian visitor. Jackson folded his tall body inch by painful inch
into a large mahogany chair. With a gesture he invited Auguste to sit
opposite him in a comfortable chair with curving wooden arms and legs.

"I want you to consider staying here in Washington City, Mr. de Marion,"
Jackson said abruptly. "I think you can be of great service to your
Indian people and to the United States. I'm impressed by the way you
prepared that speech for Black Hawk. Zack Taylor has written me that
you're a remarkably learned fellow. There are plenty of men and women
who straddle the border between the white and the red races, but most of
them are trash--illiterates and drunks who hang around Army posts. You
seem to be an important man both in the white world and among your
fellow tribesmen."

Auguste's body went cold. Jackson did want him to work for him. He found
himself resenting the President's apparent expectation that he could
easily be won over. But he was afraid that if he refused outright
Jackson might take it out on the Sauk.

He shook his head. "You overestimate me, Mr. President. I have no
importance in the white world. I had a place, but it was taken from me.
Among the Sauk--yes, I am what you would call a medicine man, but I
begged them not to go to war against the whites and they did not listen
to me."

Jackson waved that away with a long, bony hand. "I can see that you are
capable of accomplishing much. I have a situation for you in my Bureau
of Indian Affairs. If you do well in that post you might one day head
the bureau as Commissioner, responsible for the welfare of all the
Indian tribes un