.
Surely no watch made by pale eyes could measure the passage of this kind
of time.

He heard a scraping and a grumbling from deep in the cave. He felt no
fear now, only a warmth, as at the approach of an old friend. The White
Bear, he now understood, was himself in a spirit form.

The huge snuffling Bear was at his side, and confidently he rose to step
out of the cave, the Bear accompanying him with its rolling walk. He
stepped on clouds, violet and gold and white and soft as snow under his
feet.

The pathway through the sky turned northward. Through breaks in the
clouds he looked down and caught glimpses of the river, a glistening
blue snake. Ahead he could see clouds piling up on clouds, shot through
with pale, blended rainbow colors, like the ornaments carved from shells
gathered along the eastern sea.

Then he was inside the cloud tower, peering beyond the Tree of Life at
the Turtle on his crystal perch. Drop by drop from the Turtle's heart
flowed the waters of the Great River.

"What would you ask me, White Bear?" said the ancient voice like distant
thunder.

"Is my father with you?"

"Your father walks the Trail of Souls far in the West," said the Turtle.
"He will come back to earth soon, and he will be a great teacher of the
people."

"Owl Carver and Black Hawk have sent me to ask, should the British Band
go back to Saukenuk?"

The wrinkled voice said, "Behold."

The clouds changed to the walls of a room big enough to hold a Sauk
camp, where curtained windows alternated with mirrors in gilded frames.
Under each mirror was a fireplace. Three glittering chandeliers hung
from the high ceiling. In the center of a vast flower-patterned carpet
stood Black Hawk.

To White Bear's astonishment, Black Hawk was wearing the blue uniform of
a long knife, with ropes of gold on his arms and fringes of gold on his
sleeves and shoulders. But he carried no weapons. His face as usual was
gloomy.

There were other men in the room, but White Bear could only clearly see
one. A pale eyes.

He was exceedingly tall and thin; his hair was white, and his bright
blue eyes stared piercingly at Black Hawk. He wore a black cutaway
jacket and tight black trousers with shiny black leather shoes; and a
white stock, a strip of silk, wound around his throat.

White Bear had seen this man before and recognized him at once.

He was known to red men as Sharp Knife--Andrew Jackson, President of the
United States.

The man Raoul