ay
so that it would not break down the framework of poles or melt through
the roofs of elm bark and cattail mats and wet the people inside and
their possessions. The snow was dry and powdery because the air was so
cold, and it brushed away easily.

The snow was already halfway up Redbird's laced deerskin boots. She felt
the bitter cold numbing her feet and legs. What must it be like for Gray
Cloud?

She saw him as vividly as if he were standing before her. How very tall
he was, almost as tall as her brother, Iron Knife. But Gray Cloud's
frame was slender, not broad and powerful like Iron Knife's.

She saw Gray Cloud's tender mouth curving in a tentative smile, his
sharp nose giving strength to his face, his large eyes glowing. His skin
so much lighter than any other man's in the British Band of the Sauk and
Fox.

And--she asked herself--was it not partly because of the mystery of Gray
Cloud's father that she found herself drawn to him? Pale eyes fascinated
her, the few she had met, Jean de Vilbiss the trader, the black-robed
medicine man called Pere Isaac.

Every summer, when Pere Isaac visited Saukenuk village, he took Gray
Cloud aside, teaching him strange words, showing him how to understand
the meaning of marks on paper and how to make such marks. How she envied
Gray Cloud, and wished that Pere Isaac would teach her those things,
too.

Redbird wondered why pale eyes were so different and why they had so
much power. No Sauk craftsman could make anything like the steel swords
that pale eyes warriors carried, whence they were called long knives.
The steel tomahawks that the pale eyes traded for furs could shatter a
stone-headed Sauk tomahawk into fragments. A pale eyes fire weapon, of
course, was something every warrior of the Sauk and Fox tribes yearned
for.

But what interested Redbird most were the steel sewing needles and iron
cooking pots and calico dresses and wool blankets. She wondered why
Earthmaker had given the knowledge of how to make such things to the
pale eyes, but not to the Sauk and Fox. Her people wore the skins of
animals, scraped and pushed and pulled and tanned with the animals'
brains and women's urine until they were soft and pliant and could be
worn comfortably next to the skin. But the clothing of the pale eyes was
more comfortable, and easier to keep clean. And more colorful. Sauk and
Fox shirts and leggings and skirts, unless painted or decorated with
dyed quills, were usually the b