Otter Boy whimpered as they headed toward the frightening town and towers on the other side.

“Little Mouse. If they kill you, they must kill me, too,” she consoled him. “I will be there to carry you on my back into the Joyous World. Little Mouse. If they wanted to kill us, I think they would have done it already.”

The river was alive with boats going here and there, up and down, from one side to the other. It seemed that everybody here went by boat instead of feet, Indians and white, old and young. The rowers that passed close by greeted Black Robe with respect. Some made a curious sign across their breast and forehead. On the bank Black Robe motioned her to follow him and she saw uneasily that they headed toward the gate with a house on top and soldiers with guns looking out.

“Little Mouse, be a warrior now,” she told him.

Once inside the gate, hardly could she go on for the strangeness. The street flowed with people like a river with leaves in the fall, the women in bright reds, purples, and yellows, the soldiers with the rainbow sewn in their coats. Only the Indians in blankets and matchcoats reassured her, standing around without surprise at the marvel of water-colored iron through which you could see but not reach and the tower of a long house that went up in the sky.

“Little Mouse. Do you see all that I see?” she whispered. “Do you hear the white man’s tomahawk that strikes on iron and his long knife that cuts through wood?”

Black Robe took her to the door of a house with an outside room in front, a room whitewashed and without walls on three sides, so that a bird could fly through. It must be the house of a white chief, she thought, for a captain with several Indian chiefs left as they came. Black Robe struck the door with the golden iron that hung on it and a girl like Stone Girl appeared with another red kerchief on her head. She greeted Black Robe in his own Plantscheman tongue, and now Stone Girl felt the first warm melting in her breast, for when they entered, the strange girl fondled Otter Boy with her hand and made gurgling child sounds to him as they passed.

Suddenly in the roofed passageway a strange feeling came over Stone Girl, and at the door to the big room the red clouds she had known as a small girl tried to come swirling around her. She felt sure for a moment she had been here before and soon she must see the lady with yellow hair who had troubled her in her dreams. But the real lady she saw in front of her had hair black as an Indian’s. Still so close to the vision that she could bring the red clouds about her again if she wanted, Stone Girl saw Black Robe shake hands with the blackhaired lady and talk to her in the Plantscheman tongue.