He sighed and held his hands out from his sides to show that they were empty. The Winnebago could have shot him off his horse without warning, so he supposed they meant to let him live. The man on the right side of the trail, who held a bow with an arrow aimed at White Bear's heart said, in Sauk, "I am called Wave. We are looking for Black Hawk. Where can we find him?" White Bear decided to make a joke of that. "Do you want to help him fight the long knives?" Wave laughed, and translated it for his companions, who laughed also. He wore a brave's red and white feathers dangling from earrings, with two more standing upright in his hair. He said, "The long knives have offered horses and gold to whoever captures Black Hawk. We are not enemies of the Sauk, but we want the long knives' friendship." The man spoke Sauk fluently and without an accent. "It is a shame that the Winnebago fight on the side of the long knives," White Bear said. "One day they will take your land from you, as they have taken ours from us." Wave shrugged. "Look what has happened to you, who fought against them." _Red man betrays red man, and only the whites gain. It is as I told Redbird. If we want to live in this land, we ourselves must become like the whites._ "Come," said Wave. "We must take you to the long knives' war chief." White Bear slumped in despair, realizing that he was no longer a free man. He looked about him. The trees, the birds, the Great River, they were all free, but he was in the power of his enemies. The world was a darker place. Black Hawk's war, for him, was over. He wished he could have warned his people about the approaching army of long knives. And also, his heart ached for the Sauk he was unable to warn of the second long knife army. A yearning for Redbird and Eagle Feather and Floating Lily seemed almost to pull his heart from his body. He prayed that they had safely left the Bad Axe country by now and headed north with Black Hawk. Probably he would never see them again. Probably the long knives would kill him. With a sigh, he turned his horse's head in the direction Wave had pointed. * * * * * While his regiment rode by, the long knife war chief, a stocky man with a long face, thick eyebrows and hard blue eyes, stood by the side of the trail facing White Bear. He was Colonel Zachary Taylor, he had told White Bear. A burly, red-faced soldier with a sergeant's three chevrons on his forearm stood beside Taylor staring at White Bear with open hatred. "What are you, a renegade white man?" Taylor demanded. "How come you speak good English?" "I am Sauk, Colonel. My name is White Bear. My father was white, and he took me to be educated among the whites for several years." "Well, White Bear, what were you doing on this trail? Chasing the white woman and the boy we just picked up?" "It was I who brought them to you." Taylor snorted. "You expect me to believe that?" "Miss Hale will tell you it is true."