or your old teacher, Pere Isaac. He should be here any
day. I have been a great sinner, White Bear."

It gladdened White Bear's heart that his father called him by his Sauk
name.

"You are a _good_ man, my father," he said in the Sauk tongue.

Pierre raised his head, and White Bear saw that the effort pained him.
The burning, sunken eyes turned on White Bear.

"Son, I must have my answer now. Earthmaker let me live all summer,
that you might have time to decide. Now you must tell me."

"Can you not let me go back to my people, Father? Why do you ask me to
stay here and fight for something I do not want?"

"I see what Raoul has become, and I do not want him to be the master
here. I am proud of you and ashamed of him. I want you to be the future
of the de Marions, not him. And what of this land that we have loved
together, the land that Sun Woman's people have cherished for
generations? Shall it fall to Raoul?"

White Bear remembered what Owl Carver had said to Pierre at Saukenuk:
_If your land keeps you from doing what you want, then it owns_ you.

"Why couldn't you will the estate to Nicole? She's a de Marion."

"Nicole cannot do battle with Raoul when she has eight children to care
for. Her husband is an excellent man, but not a fighter. White Bear, you
are the only one."

"I still think as a Sauk, Father. Among the Sauk one man may not own
land. And to claim so much would be a great crime."

"In you the heritage of the de Marions and the Sauk claim to this land
are indissolubly united. You will be doing this for the Sauk as well as
for me and for yourself. I believe that it was God's plan that I father
you, that you spend the first fifteen years of your life among the Sauk
and then these past six as a white. Now you have a chance to be rich and
to have power. You can learn how to use your wealth to protect your
people. You can do much for them if you stay here and fight for what I
give you."

Standing over his father, White Bear lifted his head and gazed up at the
great stone and log house on the hilltop. He wondered whether he was not
being foolishly stubborn, refusing Victoire and the land the chateau
governed.

Pierre looked sad and weak and very old. All summer long White Bear,
heartbroken, had watched him suffer and diminish. He knew he could do
nothing to cure his father, and that his refusal to give him the answer
he wanted to hear was prolonging his pain. White Bear felt he would
agree to anyth