White Bear said, "Black Hawk wants to go north and seek refuge with the Chippewa. He took the compass my father gave him out of his medicine bag and showed it to the chiefs and braves. He said we must follow its arrow north. But Iron Knife disagreed with him."
Redbird's eyes widened. "My brother never disagrees with Black Hawk. Black Hawk has lived three times as long as he has."
"Iron Knife spoke for many of the younger braves," White Bear said. "They want to cross the Great River here, now, and bring the war to an end. Black Hawk reminded them that we have only three canoes. Each canoe can hold only six people, and two of those six must paddle back and forth. They would have to ferry nearly a thousand people. He said the long knives would reach us long before we all got across. Iron Knife said they would make rafts and more canoes. In the end the three chiefs and most of the braves said they would cross the river. Only a few have agreed to go north with Black Hawk."
It had taken a whole moon to cross from east to west, from their camp in the Trembling Lands to this place where the Bad Axe River emptied into the Great River. The land through which they passed, following an old Winnebago trail, was rolling prairie at first. Then they plunged into country that was ever wilder and more mountainous as they struggled westward. At the last they had to cut their own trail. They marked their passage with kettles, blankets, tent poles and other possessions too heavy to carry—and their dying old people who could walk no more, and their dead children. The only good thing about this rugged land was that it slowed down the long knives even more than it did Black Hawk's people, who knew by the time they reached the Great River that their pursuers were two days behind them.
White Bear told Nancy in English what he had just told Redbird about the council.
"If the band is dividing, where will we go?" Nancy asked.
"I asked Black Hawk—I begged him—to let you and Woodrow go." Anger crept into White Bear's voice as he recalled Black Hawk's stubbornness. "He still refuses. He wants to take the two of you north with him."
Redbird said, "But pale eyes prisoners are no good to Black Hawk now." White Bear was pleased to see that she had learned to get the drift of English conversations between him and Nancy. He did not like to feel that he was leaving Redbird out of anything, especially since he knew Nancy now.
"True," White Bear said to Redbird in Sauk. "And if we meet up with long knives again they will shoot first and not think to look for pale eyes among us. I want to get Yellow Hair and Woodrow away from the tribe before there is another battle."
There had been one great battle with the long knives halfway through their trek, on the south shore of the Ouisconsin River. Many had died on both sides, but Black Hawk had managed to get most of his people away after nightfall. Right now White Bear could almost hear the huge army of long knives crashing through the forests behind them.