hat to expect. Now he felt ready
for anything.

He strode into the woods following Three Horses' directions. As he
walked he began to hear the sounds of people's voices and dogs barking.
Gradually they drew nearer, until at last he broke through the trees
into a clearing.

The sight made his eyes brim with tears.

A hundred or more women in brown, fringed skirts were facing him, and as
he came forward they rushed to form a ring around him. His vision
blurred as he recognized faces he had not seen in six years.

Beyond the women he could see the camp of the British Band. In his joy
it seemed to him that the wickiups were bathed in a golden light. Rings
of gray domes began near the trees where he stood and spread into the
tall yellow prairie grass. Before the wickiups he could see what the
women had been working at, tasks abandoned for the moment, clothing
being mended, skins stretched, meat and fish cleaned and set on frames
to dry.

"White Bear is here!" cried one woman, and he recognized Water Flows
Fast, plump wife of Three Horses.

Three Horses, a short man with broad shoulders, stood beside his wife.
His nose was flat and spread out. White Bear did not remember it that
way. Something must have happened to Three Horses while he was gone.

_Much has happened to them while I was gone._

"I told you White Bear had come back," Three Horses said over and over
again.

White Bear breathed in the familiar smells of campfire smoke and
roasting meat, of leather and freshly cut wood and tobacco smoke. His
delighted eyes took in quillwork and beadwork and paint, blankets and
ribbons, bodies clad in fringed buckskin, warm brown faces, dark,
friendly eyes.

Murmuring greetings, he searched the crowd for specially loved faces.

"Where is Owl Carver?" he asked. After such a long time the Sauk
language came awkwardly to his lips.

Three Horses said, "Owl Carver visits the camps of the Fox and the
Kickapoo, to invite them to Black Hawk's council."

_What is Black Hawk planning now?_

White Bear did not like the sound of the news, but there would be time
to think about it later.

"Where is Sun Woman, my mother?"

Water Flows Fast spoke up. "She has gone to gather medicine plants." She
looked as cheerful as, he remembered, she always had, but her eyes
penetrated him.

"Will no one find her and tell her that I am here?"

Water Flows Fast said, "Redbird should go and tell Sun Woman. Redbird
lives with Sun Woman no