eople
stared, but White Bear wore a forbidding look, and they kept their
distance.

She had on a doeskin dress that Sun Woman had given her, and she had
done up her two blond braids the way she always had. He felt a little
catch in his throat as he looked at her and remembered those
not-accidental meetings on the prairie near Victoire.

Every so often as they walked along she twisted her shoulders inside the
soft leather and rubbed her arms uncomfortably. They passed a group of
warriors who had felled a big oak tree and were burning and scraping its
inside to make a dugout. The men stopped work to watch her go by.

Seeing the way they looked at her, White Bear thought, _Yes, she must
marry me_. He hoped he could persuade her that it would be the only way
for her to be safe.

He led her to the western edge of the high ground on which the band had
made their camp. They stopped when the earth underfoot turned soft and
wet. Before them lay an expanse of reeds that vanished into morning
mist.

"Did you talk to Black Hawk?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Can I get
away from here?"

White Bear remembered Sun Woman's admonition to be kind to Nancy at
every moment. He tried to think how best to tell her the bad news, how
to add only the smallest possible amount of fear to her burden.

"Black Hawk is pleased that I stopped the people from hurting you
yesterday," he began tentatively. "He said the white men despise Indians
when they kill their prisoners."

Her lips trembled. "He's not going to let me go, is he?" she said, and
sobs began to shake her body. When she was able, she turned pleadingly
toward him. "Couldn't you do anything for me?"

White Bear spread his hands helplessly. "I talked to him as best I
could." He tried to tell her something encouraging. "He just wants to
keep you until he can talk to the soldiers and make some kind of a
truce."

She drew away from him, her red-rimmed eyes wide. "A truce? Does Black
Hawk really think he can make a truce? Don't you realize what _your
people_, your brave Indians, have been doing all over the frontier?
Burnings and massacres everywhere. I told you what they did at Victor.
Do you think the soldiers would ever be willing to talk peace with Black
Hawk now?"

White Bear had listened to the returning warriors' tales of victories
over the long knives at Kellogg's Grove, at Indian Creek, along the
Checagou-Galena road. In despair he had realized that what the Sauk saw