nto the woods, given her a taste
of the real thing, she'd have changed her mind about him.

_Is she still pining for the mongrel?_

Well, he thought, as the gray log walls of the trading post came into
sight around a bend in the ridge road, he _would_ carry her answer to
the war. And the Indians would suffer the more for it.

* * * * *

Prophet's Town was deserted. Black Hawk and his allies had fled.

Raoul reined up Banner in the very center of the rings of dark, silent
Indian houses. Armand Perrault, Levi Pope, Hodge Hode and Otto Wegner
stopped beside him. He did not know whether he was relieved or
disappointed. His cap-and-ball pistol drawn, the hammer pulled back, he
drew angry breaths and glared about him. He felt exposed, realizing that
at any time an arrow aimed at his heart could come winging out of one of
those long loaf-shaped bark and frame Winnebago lodges.

Because of Raoul's experience in the skirmishing around Saukenuk last
year, General Henry Atkinson had commissioned him a colonel and put him
in command of the advance guard, known as the spy battalion. He enjoyed
the prestige of leading the spies, but he felt a constant tightness in
his belly.

He reached down for the canteen in the Indian blanketwork bag strapped
to his saddle, uncorked it and took a quick swallow of Old Kaintuck. It
went down hot and spread warmth from his stomach through his whole body.
He cooled his throat with water from a second canteen.

For three weeks now, slowed by heavy spring rains that swelled creeks to
nearly impassable torrents, the militia had followed Black Hawk's trail
up the Rock River. To the whites' disappointment, the Indians had
bypassed Saukenuk, doubtless aware that the militia had come out against
them. Instead, Black Hawk's band had trekked twenty-five miles upriver,
reportedly stopping at Prophet's Town. Now, they were not here either.

Raoul hated the Indian village on sight. Built on land that sloped
gently down to the south bank of the Rock River, it surrounded him,
threatened him, lay dark, sullen and sinister under a gray sky heavy
with rain. It reminded him too vividly of the redskin villages where
he'd spent those two worst years of his life.

He saw no cooking fires, no drying meat or stacks of vegetables by the
dark doorways, no poles flaunting feathers, ribbons and enemy scalps.
That characteristic odor of Indian towns, a mixture of tobacco smoke and
cookin