Auguste nodded, repeating what he had so often heard Black Hawk say in the tribal meetings. "Land is not something to be bought and sold. So we believe." Pierre closed his eyes wearily, his fingertips still resting on the calumet that lay across his chest. Auguste grieved. The father who had left him when he was a little boy and then come back for him was leaving him again, slipping away. Marchette wiped Pierre's face with a damp cloth. Nicole's lower lip trembled as she said, "My big brother. You've always been here for me." Elysee's face was crumpled by an unbearable sadness. He wishes, Auguste thought, that it was him lying there dying, instead of his son. Pierre opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at Auguste. Auguste gently pressed his hand against his father's balding brow. "Rest, Father, rest." "Not till we are done. You know that your grandfather turned the estate over to me when I was forty years of age. Now I must pass it on. Until recent years I had thought that the land would go to Raoul when I died. "But the enmity between me and Raoul has grown deeper and deeper. A few times he and I and Papa have met together, trying to come to terms. Each time, the words that passed between us were more cruel. Then, a year ago, he even boasted to me that he killed three Sauk Indians who were taking lead from that mine he has been working, which they believe to be theirs." Auguste gasped. _Sun Fish and the others! That must have been what happened to them._ Pierre said, "What is it?" "I think I know those three. One of them was my age, and a friend of mine." His hatred for Raoul burned fiercer than ever. Pierre said, "For a long time now there have been no words at all between Raoul and me." Auguste said, "It was my coming here that turned you against each other." Nicole spoke up. "Not you. Raoul has had a grudge against Pierre for as long as I can remember." Elysee said, "Yes, Raoul has many quarrels with me--over land and how it is to be used, our paying the Sauk and Fox for it, the Fort Dearborn massacre. Yes, you are part of it, Auguste, but there is much more besides." Auguste shook his head. "But before I came, Father and Raoul were speaking to each other and the question of who would get the estate was settled. And it still can be. Father, after you are gone I will go back to my people. You can tell Raoul that, and there will be peace between you." With pain that tore all through him like lightning burning through a tree, Auguste realized that he had committed himself to stay here as long as his father lived. His Sauk family and loved ones were in terrible danger four days' ride from here, and he wanted to be with them. But he couldn't leave Pierre now. His fear for Sun Woman and Redbird and the others in peril, his shame at not going to help them, would be a terrible torment, but he would have to endure it. He could not leave his father to take his first steps on the Trail of Souls alone.