he would be on the same level as the militiamen. Safer up high.

He forced his tired legs to spring, managed to grip the lowest limb, one
hand on each side of it, bark scratching his palms. He pressed the soles
of his moccasins flat against the trunk and walked his body up, panting,
until he was able to pull himself up over the limb and reach for the
next one. The branches were stout and close together, and soon he was
high above the floor of the wood.

_You made a ladder for me. Thank you, Grandfather Oak._

Dozens of mounted militiamen were streaming past his tree, galloping
right under him. The hoofbeats of the horses and the shouts of the men
to one another, pitched high with terror, shattered the night air.

He saw the black shapes of more horses and riders swimming through the
prairie grass. Their elated cries were Sauk war whoops.

The braves of his tribe, racing toward him as if to rescue him. A sun
rose in his breast.

Rifles boomed and arrows whistled through the air after the fleeing
militiamen, and he was thankful that he was up this high. He heard
screams. Somewhere nearby a body crashed into shrubbery.

Some long knives, he saw, were trying to go around the woods, but the
greater distance they had to travel gave the Sauk riders time to catch
up with them. Rifle shots flashed like lightning in the darkness.

Two shadowy figures on foot, so close together they seemed one, stumbled
out of the tall grass and pushed their way into the woods, careless of
the noise they were making. White Bear held his breath, hoping they
would not discover him above them.

A voice below him said, "You got to keep going. They'll catch you and
tomahawk you sure."

Now the two men were standing by the tree in which he had taken shelter.
He strained his ears to listen.

"Save yourself," said another voice, rasping with pain. "I cannot run.
The arrow is under my kneecap. I will stay here and try to hold them
off."

_I know that voice, that accent. It is the Prussian, Otto Wegner._

White Bear remembered how Wegner had disappointed him back at Raoul's
camp. Now his life was in danger; he deserved that.

"Hold them off? There's hunnerds of them." He'd heard the other man's
voice before, but he sounded like so many long knives, White Bear could
not be sure that he knew him.

"Well, maybe if I shoot a few of them, you can get away."

At that White Bear felt anger heating up in his chest. So Wegner would
like to shoot