drive away some twenty armed men?

A sudden thought came to him. "Raoul, I challenge you to fight me for
the land. With pistols or knives or barehanded. Any way you want it."

Raoul grinned, white teeth appearing suddenly under the black mustache.
"You've gotten big in the last six years, but I'm a better shot than you
are, and I'd slice you to bits with my knife. In a barehanded fight I'd
bite your ears off and ram 'em down your throat. We don't need a fight
to prove what anybody can plainly see."

"If you won't fight me you're a coward as well as a thief."

Raoul's eyes narrowed, and his shoulders hunched forward, as if he was
about to attack.

"Dueling is also a grave sin," said Pere Isaac. "And it is against the
law of this state. I forbid you to fight."

Raoul laughed and lifted his empty hands. "Too bad, mongrel. The father
won't let us fight."

Auguste turned to Pere Isaac. "How can you take from me the only way I
have of fighting for this land?"

"If God wants you to have it, He will see that you get it without doing
wrong," said Pere Isaac calmly.

The face of Black Hawk appeared in Auguste's mind, and suddenly he
understood the wrath that had always seemed to smoulder just below the
war chief's skin. This must be how Black Hawk felt when the pale eyes
told him he could no longer come to Saukenuk. That was why Black Hawk
had been leading his people back to Saukenuk year after year. He would
not give up.

And neither would Auguste.

_I must fight. I promised my father I would fight for this land. I
smoked the calumet with him._

He remembered Pierre's words: _Now you have a chance to own land, to be
rich and to have power. You can learn how to use your wealth to protect
your people._

And he was losing that chance. As he saw these rich acres being torn
away from him, more and more he felt himself wanting them.

But how to fight for the land? To charge Raoul's pistol and the rifles
of his men would simply mean death. Surely that was not what Pierre
wanted for him.

An unfamiliar voice said, "Is this really how you settle land disputes
in Smith County?"

Auguste turned to see David Cooper, a lean, hard-eyed man he had met
several weeks earlier when Cooper had visited Pierre to pay his
respects.

Raoul said, "Don't you like the way we do things here, Cooper?"

Cooper's cold expression did not change. "Just requesting information,
Mr. de Marion. That's all."

Cooper had brought his family