But Redbird had probably given in to Wolf Paw and married him. After all, she hadn't had a word from White Bear in all that time. Marchette's urgent tone refocused his thoughts. "Monsieur Raoul, he stood up on the table and held up a bag full of Spanish dollars--he said there were fifty--and said he would give it to the man who shoots you. And there were many men who cheered at that and boasted they would be the one to win the silver." Auguste pictured men scattering out all over Smith County, hunting for him. He could almost feel the rifle ball shattering his skull. "I can't hide in your house forever, Nancy. Sooner or later they'll come looking for me, and I don't want to bring that down on your heads." Reverend Hale said nothing, but Auguste saw relief in his square face--and grudging respect. But Hale's respect, he thought, would do him little good when he lay dead on the prairie. Nancy's full lips quivered as she said, "You'll go to the chateau and let them shoot you?" Auguste realized that his hands were cold with fear, and he rubbed them together to warm them. Hale's house was about ten miles across the prairie from the Mississippi. Could he cover all that distance without being seen and shot? "I'm not going to the chateau. I'll just see that Marchette gets there safely. Traveling at night, she should have someone go back with her. Then I'll go on to town. To Nicole and Frank's house. To Grandpapa. I must see him." He turned toward the cook and felt a stabbing in his gut at the sight of her bruised face. She'd suffered that out of love for his father, he thought, and for his sake too. "If you're seen you'll be shot," said Hale. _Don't you think I know that?_ he wanted to scream at the minister. What choice did he have? He was like a rabbit surrounded by wolves. He forced calm on himself and spoke with sarcasm. "Surely you know, Reverend, that Indians are good at getting about unnoticed." He felt his fear turning to a rising excitement as he recalled the lessons of stealth and cunning he'd learned as a child of the Sauk. "But what will you do then?" Nancy asked. "How will you get back here?" Auguste hesitated. Remembering that he was a Sauk had moved his thoughts in a new direction. _I have been dispossessed. Just as my people have been dispossessed._ Nancy was waiting for him to speak. "Raoul told me to go back to the woods with the other Indians. Even though the advice came from him, I think that is just what I should do." Nancy gasped as if he had struck her. There was silence in the cottage for a moment. "How will you get back to your people?" she said. "How will you find them?" He smiled, trying to get her to smile back at him. "I know exactly where they are. They've crossed the Mississippi to their hunting grounds in the Ioway Territory. I spent the first fifteen winters of my life there with the British Band."