'It was I who brought them here!' cried Iwoso.
I did not think it wise that the Yellow Knives were urging their kaiila so speedily upward, and in such numbers, on so narrow a trail. To be sure, they were eager. Also, of course, it is sometimes difficult to seperate the red savage from his kaiila. This sometimes renders his strategies somewhat inflexable. The tactical situation, in my opinion, called for anassult on foot. But the Yellow Knife would not be likely to think in such terms, at least not immediately. He, like most of the red savages, seemed to be a born cavalryman. They would learn, swiftly enought, of course, that the trail, here and there, abruptly narrowed. Indeed, in places, usually about blind turns, we had artificially narrowed it.
'You are finished now, Kaiila sleen!' cried Iwoso.
'Are you proud of yourself, and of your role in this?' asked Hci.
'Yes,' she cried. 'Yes!'
'Interesting,' said Hci.
'Now you will all be killed!' cried Iwoso. 'Now even your women and children will be killed!'
'There is not one woman or child in this camp,' said Hci.
'What?' she asked.
'No,' said Hci.
'All the lodges!' she cried.
'There are mostly empty,' said Hci. 'The women and children are elswhere, and safe.'
'I do not understand,' said Iwoso.
'This is a camp of warriors,' said Hci.
'But the council!' cried Iwoso.
'There was never a council,' said Hci.
'But what are you doing here?' asked Iwoso.
'Waiting for Yellow Knives,' said Hci.
'We have had them under serveillance for four days,' said Cuwignaka.
'I do not understand!' said Iwoso.
'You have played your role well,' said Hci.
'My role?' she asked.
'Yes,' said Hci, 'Your part in our plans.'
'I do not understand,' she said.
'You have been manipulated,' said Cuwignaka. 'You ahve been tricked.'
'Without understanding it,' said Hci, 'you have been as obedient and compliant as a slave.'
'No!' she cried.
'Check her bonds,' said Hci.
I did so. 'She is well tied, and absolutely helpless,' I said.
'I do not believe you!' she cried to Hci.
We heard the scream of a kaiila some two hundred feet below. Two kaiila, with their riders, slipping and scrambling, slid from the trail and then, unsupported, failing, turning in the air, the riders and thier mounts separating, they fell a hundred feet, struck some rocks, bounded out from the escarpment and feel the final two undred feet to the lower, sloping face of Council Rock, and then, a moment later, struck the prairie below.
'I do not believe you!' cried Iwoso to Hci. 'It cannot be!'
'Check the bonds of her slave,' said Hci.
'You are a liar!' screamed Iwoso.
'Why else do you think that you and your miserable slave have been brought forth and roped so prominently to these posts at the edge of the escarpment? That you may, as it amuses us, see what you have brought about!'
'No!' cried Iwoso.
'But your presence here serves another purpose, as well,' said Hci. 'It is to be expected that the Yellow Knives, seeing you, a high lady of their tribe, tied naked, as a slave, with a slave, will be incensed, that they will be outraged at this insult, that they will fight even more desperately, frenziedly and irrationally to free you, and thus, concomitantly, will be more susceptible to eerrors in judgment and tactics. Too, later, when they come to realize how they must have been tricked, how you brought them into this trap, perhaps they will see fit to riddle your pretty body, and that of your slave, with arrows.'
Iwoso regarded Hci with horror.
'Oh!' cried Bloketu.
'This one, too, is now well secured,' I said.
We heard the scream of another kaiila and saw it, and its rider, plunging downward.
'Neighter of you,' said Hci, regarding the two women, 'roped as you are, will make difficult targets.'
'Please untie me,' begged Iwoso.
'Please untie me, Cuwignaka!' begged Bloketu.
Cuwignaka, in fury, went to Bloketu and slapped her head, back and forth, in the neck bonds.
She regarded him startled, blood at her mouth.
'How do you dare, without permission, to so put the name of a free man on your slave lips?' asked Cuwignaka.
Bloketu looked at Cuwignaka, startled, disbelievingly. He was now a man who had punished her.
'I am sorry,' she whispered.
His eyes were fierce. I think she scarcey understood that it could be Cuwignaka.
'— Master,' she added.
On the trail below, only some twenty feet or so below the ledge, charging upward, Yellow Knives, four or five abreast, mounted on painted kaiila, swept toward the top of the trail, some hundred feet or so to our right.
But a moment before the fanguard of his charging force could attain the summit the high, heavy structure of timbers and sharpened stakes was thrust into place. The stakes, anchored by the timbers, were tied together like fierce wooden stars. Kaiila, screaming, unable to check their forward momentum, plunged onto the stakes. Impaled and torn, pressed from behind, filling the air with hideous noises, they reared and twisted, throwing riders and biting and clawing at one another. More kaiila rushed foreard, charging behind them, striking into the bloody, halted mass. Riders slipped down among the animals, screaming. More kaiila, from behind, pressed forward. Dozens of animals and may riders were forced from the trail, sliding and plummeting down the steep face of Council Rock.
I saw one of the war chiefs of the Yellow Knives, whom I remembered from the summer camp, in his kaiila slip over the ledge. Still more Yellow Knives, not clear on what was ahead, were trying to force their way upward on the narrow trail. Men fought to escape the edge, cuting at one another even with knives. But those at the edge, often, other Yellow Knives pressing forward, were thrust, even fought, from the trail.
The air was rent with screaming, that of beasts and men. Bodies, thos of kaiila and Yellow Knives, slipped from the edge, plummeting downward. Lances snapped against the stone and the barricade, halted in their charge, seeing the impossiblity of advance under the current conditons, were trying to back their beasts from the barricade. This forced other beasts and men from the trail. Others, wildly, fought to turn their beasts. Some of these, successful, began to try to force their way back down the trail.
There was much shouting as well as screaming. I saw the movement of battle staffs. Their visibility, of course, was minimal, given the twistings of the irregualr, tortuous trail. More efficient were the blasts of war whistles. The trial then, long and winding, visible in many of its lengths from the height of the escarpment, seemed choked with Yellow Knives. It was like an odd, upward-moving, arrested river of beasts and men, suddenly stopped, immobilized, in its flow. We could have even see many Yellow Knives, puzzled, milling about, near the foot of the trail, hundreds of feet below. The trail, within its narrow boundaries, the rock on one side, the fall on the other, consituted a suitable trap, or slaughter channel, for our paralyzed, bewildered, confined enemies.
'No!' screamed Iwoso. 'No!'
Lodges, with their poles, were thrown back and men energed, dragging at the ropes of small travois, heavily laden with stones. Others, with their hands, and levers, began to roll larger stones, even boulders, toward the edge of the escarpment.
