l over in Ioway."

Auguste nodded. "I'll eat better. But--twenty-five dollars. Frank,
that's too much for you to spend on me." He felt a warm gratitude toward
the plump, sandy-haired man who was risking so much to help him. Frank's
newspaper, his printing business and his carpentry all together could
hardly bring in twenty-five dollars in a month, little enough to feed a
family of ten.

Elysee said, "I told you I had some money salted away, Auguste. Let the
boat and the rifle be my gift to you."

Auguste reached out and squeezed his grandfather's bony hand.

Frank said, "I've moved the boat about half a mile below town and hidden
it. We should be able to get down there unseen after dark."

Nicole said, "If Auguste is leaving as Raoul wants him to, why wouldn't
Raoul just let him go?"

Frank said, "We can't take that chance. I believe Raoul won't be content
unless he kills Auguste."

Auguste shuddered inwardly at the thought that there was in the world a
man who would not be satisfied until he was dead. He could not live with
that kind of fear. He asked the White Bear, his spirit guide, to give
him courage.

He tried to push the fear out of his mind. He stood up to go back to the
room where he had slept. He would clean and repack the things he was
taking, he decided. He would get busy getting ready and not give himself
time to think about being afraid.

But nightfall seemed a long way off.

At nine o'clock in the evening by the Seth Thomas clock in Frank's
printing shop, which he reset every day at sunset, it was dark enough
and the town was quiet enough for Auguste to leave. He held Nicole's
ample body tight and kissed her, shook hands with the boys and kissed
the girls. His grandfather had drifted off to sleep again, but the old
man had kissed him on both cheeks, and they had said their good-byes in
the afternoon.

The road down the bluff from the town to the bottomland was empty. Most
people in Victor went to bed soon after sunset, and those who didn't
would be up in the taproom of the trading post inn.

Auguste did see candlelight flickering in a one-room log cabin they
passed. A silhouette appeared in the window just as he looked in. A man
reached out and slammed the shutters closed.

"Bad luck we should pass that house just as he came to the window,"
Frank said. "One of Raoul's men. But he's more than likely still half
drunk."

Frank and Auguste followed the road past fields of corn ready for
har