ust be trying to get close enough to
jump us."

Raoul studied the four advancing men. Two had their heads wrapped in
turbans, one red, one blue. All four wore fringed buckskin leggings and
gray flannel shirts. He saw no weapons.

Then he caught sight of more shadowy figures in the trees beyond the
Indians. Instantly, he straighted his arm in that direction and pulled
the trigger. His pistol went off with a boom, puffing out a cloud of
gray smoke. He handed it to Armand to reload it while he reached for his
own new rifle, a breech-loading Hall.

The Indian with the red turban was shouting something. Raoul recognized
the language--Potawatomi. The sound of it made the blood pound in his
temples.

"Those are only squaws and papooses," the Indian called in Potawatomi.
"Please do not shoot them."

Raoul felt like shooting them all, just for being Potawatomi, but he
held the impulse in check. He had to find out whatever they could tell
him.

He addressed the Indians in their language, indelibly engraved in his
mind by the acids of fear and hatred. "Tell them all to come out. We
will kill anyone who hides from us."

The red-turbaned Indian called over his shoulder, and slowly a group of
women and small children came out of the woods.

Raoul took his reloaded pistol back from Armand and walked Banner over
to the little group. They started to lower their hands.

"Keep them up." He gestured with the pistol. Slowly the copper-skinned
men straightened their raised arms again, looking at one another
unhappily.

_Probably thought we'd welcome them with kind words and gifts._ The
muscles in his neck and shoulders were so rigid they ached, and his
stomach was boiling. In his mind he saw again the scarred face of Black
Salmon, the brown fist raised, holding a horsewhip to beat him. The
sounds of Potawatomi speech brought it all back.

He handed his horse's reins to Armand, who tied Banner to an upright
post in front of a nearby lodge.

"Who are you?" Raoul demanded.

"I am Little Foot," said the Indian wearing the red turban. "I am head
of the Deer Clan. We live here in the town of the Winnebago Prophet."

Little Foot's skin was dark, and he had a wide, flat nose. He wore no
feathers on his head, probably not wanting to look warlike. Black hair
streaked here and there with white hung down from under his turban in
two braids to his shoulders. Raoul judged him to be in his fifties.

_He could have been at Fort Dearborn