She saw him as vividly as if he were standing before her. How very tall he was, almost as tall as her brother, Iron Knife. But Gray Cloud's frame was slender, not broad and powerful like Iron Knife's. She saw Gray Cloud's tender mouth curving in a tentative smile, his sharp nose giving strength to his face, his large eyes glowing. His skin so much lighter than any other man's in the British Band of the Sauk and Fox. And--she asked herself--was it not partly because of the mystery of Gray Cloud's father that she found herself drawn to him? Pale eyes fascinated her, the few she had met, Jean de Vilbiss the trader, the black-robed medicine man called Pere Isaac. Every summer, when Pere Isaac visited Saukenuk village, he took Gray Cloud aside, teaching him strange words, showing him how to understand the meaning of marks on paper and how to make such marks. How she envied Gray Cloud, and wished that Pere Isaac would teach her those things, too. Redbird wondered why pale eyes were so different and why they had so much power. No Sauk craftsman could make anything like the steel swords that pale eyes warriors carried, whence they were called long knives. The steel tomahawks that the pale eyes traded for furs could shatter a stone-headed Sauk tomahawk into fragments. A pale eyes fire weapon, of course, was something every warrior of the Sauk and Fox tribes yearned for. But what interested Redbird most were the steel sewing needles and iron cooking pots and calico dresses and wool blankets. She wondered why Earthmaker had given the knowledge of how to make such things to the pale eyes, but not to the Sauk and Fox. Her people wore the skins of animals, scraped and pushed and pulled and tanned with the animals' brains and women's urine until they were soft and pliant and could be worn comfortably next to the skin. But the clothing of the pale eyes was more comfortable, and easier to keep clean. And more colorful. Sauk and Fox shirts and leggings and skirts, unless painted or decorated with dyed quills, were usually the brown or tan of animal skins. The best deerskin garments were worked till they were white. The dresses and shawls and blankets the pale eyes traders offered were of many colors--blue and yellow, red and green, with flowers and other pictures and designs on them. Redbird often spent long moments staring at the good calico dress her father, Owl Carver, had gotten for her from the pale eyes traders, just delighting in the tiny red roses printed on its pale blue background. For a moment, lost in thought about the pale eyes, she had forgotten Gray Cloud's danger and her own pain. Now it came back to her like a war club crushing her chest. Soon it would be night again. Gray Cloud had been in the cave a whole night and a whole day, while the snow fell. And the snow was falling still. If someone did not rescue him, he would surely die. She would go to her father, Owl Carver, and demand that Gray Cloud be brought back from the sacred cave.