finger was black paint. The pigment is fixed in kailiauk grease. He held her steady with his left hand behind her shoulder and, with his finger, traced a mark on her left breast. He looked at it, and then wiped his finger on his thigh and replaced the sack in his belt. She looked down at the mark. It wsa the mark of her master. She was then, by the hair, thrown among the other women. The man retrieved his lance and then, swiftly, remounted his kaiila. In a moment he had left the place. The woman lay on her back, with the others, left behind. On her left breast, in black paint, was an identificatory mark. Most of the others there, too, wore such marks, but, in their cases, the marks wre different.
'Some of these women,' I said to Cuwignaka, 'are red, doubtless former free women of the Kaiila.'
'Women are born to serve men,' said Cuwignaka.
Some of the women, though only a few, were marked not with paint, but with tags, divices of wire with an attached leather disk. The wire is thrust through an ear lobe or the septum and twisted shut, thus fastening the tag on the female.
'Do you think that is true, Wasnapohdi?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said, lowering her head. 'I think so.'
'Why?' I asked.
'Our deepest fulfillments,' she said, 'are found in obedience, service and love.'
'But are these not the primary duties required of the female slave?' I asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'It thus seems,' I said, 'that there is some sort of interesting relationship between the achievement of female fulfillment and the harsh institution of uncompromising female slavery,'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I smiled.
'But we would like to choose our masters.' she said.
'Unfortunately,' I said, 'that is not possible.'
'I am a female slave,' she said. 'I am well aware of that, Master.'
'Sometimes, perhaps,' I said, 'a woman must find herself at the feet of the very man whom she would have chosen, had she the choice, as her master.'
'Perhaps, Master,' she said. 'But even if she is not so fortunate as to be owned by such a man, there is a gratification for her in being made to kneel and obey, and will-lessly, serve, a gratification connected with the fulfillment of her nature as lover and slave, and connected, too, with the knowledge that she is now at last in her place in nature, and will be kept there.'
'I see,' I said.
'Too,' she said, 'it is hard not to fall in love, eventually, with one who is one's master.'
'That makes it easier, of course, to control the girl,' I said.
'Doubtless, Master,' she said, I thought with a trace of bitterness.
Bondage, I thought, must, doubtless, sometimes, be a hard lot for a female. Even whether a girlis clothed or not is up to the master.
'Do you think these women,' I asked, surveying the trussed women at the collection point, 'will make good slaves?'
'Any woman,' she said, 'with the proper master, will make a superb slave.'
'Look upon them,' I said. 'You see them nude, helpless and bound, thrown together as the mere properties they are.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Doubtless you feel keen pity for them,' I said.
'Yes, master,' she said. 'Master!'
I held her so that she could not move. My hand was upon her.
'But you are aroused, WAsnapohdi,' I told her.
'Yes, Master,' she whispered.
'Why is it,' I asked, 'that the sight of one female in bondage makes another desire to be placed in the same condition!'
'I do not know, Master,' she said.
'Do you desire to be nude, and bound among them?' I asked.
'No, Maser,' she said. 'I am already with masters.'
'I am not a master,' said Cuwignaka.
'Is he a master?' I asked Wasnapohdi. She was a female. She might be able to tell such things.
'There is that in him which could be a master,' said Wasnapohdi. 'I sense it.'
'I wear the dress of a woman,' said Cuwignaka. 'I will not even fight.'
'There is in you that which could be a master,' said Wasnapohdi. 'I can sense it.'
'That is absurd,' said Cuwignaka.
'It is you who must decide,' she said.
'Look at these women,' I said to Cwuignaka. 'Many of them are former free women of the Kaiila. Many men, as they are of their own people, regardless of what would be in the best interest of the women, would fight to free them. In such matters they would not consider what would make the women most happy but rather would take their enslavement, irrationally, as being somehow demeaning or insulting to them personally. Thus, for their own anity, really, in the final analysis, the would fight to free them. Too, sometimes men who desire to own slaves but are themselves too weak to do so, or, because of rigidities of cripplings, are psychologically incapable of doing so, will, out of envy, jealousy and spite, fight to free them, in order to deny others the pleasures which they, because of their handicaps and inhibitions, cannot grant to themselves. If I, for one reason or another, cannot have these etraordinary pleasures, then neither, too, shall anyone else, so to speak. Moral fervor is often the outcome of inadequacy. Happy men do not make good zealots. Once again, of course, the best intrests f the women, and whatever might be their true nature, are not considered. They, as usual, though putatively the objects of these wars, are the forgotten ones. All women know that truly strong-drive men desire to own them; a male with strong drives will never be truly content with anything else. Truth is not terrible; it is mearly real.'
Cuwignaka looked at me, not speaking.
'But will you not fight for these women, even for reasons of vanity?' I asked.
'No,' he said. He shook his head. 'I do not want to fight. I cannot fight. I am sorry, my friend, Tatankasa. I cannot fight.'
'I cannot make you couch a lance,' I said. 'I cannot put a knife into your hand.'
'I am sorry, Tatankasa,' he said.
'Let us go,' I said. 'We must try to make the center of camp.'
'It is the dance lodge,' I said.
To our right was the great, circular brush lodge. It was some forthy feet in height. It enclosed a packed- down dancing space of some fifty feet in diameter. It was celinged with poles and brances. In the center of the lodge, visible now through a hole torn in the brush, was the tall, slim, peeled twice-forked pole which days ago, Winyela had felled. The parapernailia of the dance, with the exception of some long, narrow, braded ropes, had been removed from the pole. The pole itself had apparently been attacked with hatchets and knives. It was marked and gashed. From the sides of the dance lodge huge gouts of brush had been torn away. It was through these gaps that Yellow Knives had perhaps entered the lodge. Inside, in several places, the dust was bloodstained. In places, marked by successions of linear stains, and marks in the dust, bodies had apparently been dragged from the lodge. This, persumably, would have been done later by Kaiila.
'This place, as I understand it,' I said, 'is holy to your people. It has been desecrated.'
Cuwignaka shook his head. 'I cannot fight,' he said.
'Do not look down,' I warned Cuwignaka. 'It will disturb you.'
'Tatankasa!' he said.
'I have seen it,' I said. 'Come along.'
But Cuwignaka knelt down among the dead. He lifted the small body in his arms.
'Let us go,' I said.
'It is only a child.' he said.
Wasnapohdi averted her eyes. She looked sick. It was not pretty.
