the bone was exposed.
'More, too, was done,' said Grunt, bitterly.
'It is fortunate that you did not bleed to death,' I said.
'Is it?' asked Grunt.
'Yes,' I said.
'Perhaps,' he said.
'Do many know?' I asked.
'You did not know,' said Grunt. 'But it is generally not unknown.'
'I see,' I said.
'Wasnapohdi did not know,' he said. 'When she first saw she threw up in the grass.'
'She is only a slave,' I said. Wasnapohdi kept her head down.
'Do you wonder,' he asked, 'why Grunt seeks the Barrens, why he spends so little time with his own people?'
'The camp is going to fall, imminently,' I said. 'It is my suggestion that you ride for your lives.'
'I prefer the Barrens,' said Grunt, angrily. 'They have strong stomachs in the Barrens!'
'Riders!' said Cuwignaka. 'And kaiila!'
We spun about on our kaiila.
'They are Kaiila!' said Cuwignaka.
Some five warriors, of the Napoktan Kaiila, each drawing a string of kaiila, pulled up near us.
'The women and children,' said Cuwignaka, pointing, 'are in that direction.'
'Wasnapohdi,' cried one of the warriors, 'is that you?'
Wasnapohdi, from her crouching position, fell immediately, seemingly unable to help herself, to her knees in the grass. She looked up, her lower lip trembling, tears suddenly brimming in her eyes. 'Yes, Master!' she said.
'Hurry!' cried the leader of the warriors, and, suddenly, they sped away, in the direction Cuwignaka had indicated.
I had heard the way in which Wasnapohdi had said the word 'Master' to the young man. It had not been used in the mere fashion in which any slave girl might use the experession 'Master' to any free man, expressing her understood lowliness and deference before him, but rather as though he might be her own master.
Grunt, I noted, had drawn on his broad-brimmed hat. He had not wished to be seen as he was before the young warriors.
'That is Waiyeyeca,' I said to her.
'Yes, Master,' she said, tears in her eyes. I understood now why she had hidden from him in the camp. She feared her feelings. There was no doubt now in my mind, nor, I think, in hers, that she indeed did love him, In her eyes, and in her voice, and in the way in which she had said 'Master' to him, I saw that she still, in her heart, regarded herself as his slave.
Grunt, too, a shrewd man, had noticed this.
Wasnapohdi rose to her feet, looking after the riders. She put out her hand. Tears were in her eyes.
'Let me follow him, Master,' she said to Grunt. 'Please!'
'Have you recieved permission to rise, Slave?' asked Grunt.
She looked at him, startled. Then Grunt, with a savage blow of the back of his hand, struck her to the grass at his feet. She looked up at him, disbelievingly. There was blood at the side of her mouth. Her hands were then taken before her body and he wrists, crossed, were, at one end of a long tether, tightly tied. She was then jerked to her feet. 'You do not belong to him,' said Grunt. 'You belong to me.'
'Yes, Master,' she said, tears in her eyes.
Grunt mounted. He looped the free end of her tether three times about the pommel of his saddle. 'If we survive,' said Grunt, 'you will discover that your breach of discipline has earned you a superb lashing.'
'Yes, Master,' she wept.
With all her heart she wished to run after Waiyayeca, but she would go with Grunt. Her will was nothing. She was a slave.
'I was too much absorbed with myself,' said Grunt. 'Sometimes I let things bother me too much. I thank you both, my friends, for bringing me to my senses.'
'Ride,' said Cuwignaka. 'It is nearly dark. Hopefully many will be able to escape from the camp, riding or afoot.'
'Surely you will come with us?' said Grunt.
'No,' said Cuwignaka.
'The fighting is the business of warriors,' said Grunt.
'We are warriors,' said Cuwignaka.
'I wish you well,' said Grunt.
'We wish you well,' I said.
'Oglu waste!' said Cuwignaka.
'Oglu waste!' said Grunt, 'Good luck!'
He then moved his kaiila away, through the gloom. We saw Wasnapohdi cast an anguished glance over her shoulder, in the direction in which Waiyeyeca had ridden. Then, by the wrists, weeping, stubling, the tether taut, she was pulled along, by the side of Grunt's kaiila.
'He is the only man I know who has survived that,' said Cuwignaka.
'In itself,' I said, 'It is not likely to be lethal. It is only that it is commonly done only to the dying or dead.'
'You are right, of course,' said Cuwignaka.
'Grunt seems rather sensitive about it,' I said.
'It saved his life today,' said Cuwignaka. 'He should be pleased.'
'I suppose one could get used to it,' I said.
'It is hideous,' said Cuwignaka.
'To be sure,' I granted him, 'it is not likely to start a fashion.'
'I do not think so,' laughed Cuwignaka.
'He is a good man,' I said.
'Yes,' said Cuwignaka, 'and a kindly one.'
'Yes,' I said.
'I wonder if Wasnapohdi will ever realize how Grunt was concerned to save her life.'
'She will doubtless understand sometime,' I said. 'She is an intelligent woman.'
'Mahpiyasapa knows the camp is lost,' said Cuwignaka.
'Yes,' I said. 'The young warriors were bringing in kaiila, to help evacuate the women and children.'
'Do you think there will be enough kaiila?' asked Cuwignaka.
'I do not know,' I said.
'There will not be,' said Cuwignaka.
Chapter 30
SARDAK
Thrusting and stabbing we cut through soldiers.
'Kaiila! Friends!' I cried, lance uplifted.
'Tatankasa! Cuwignaka!' cried a man.
The thin, ragged, linear oval of warriors, some hundred yards in length, opened, admitting us. Within it, crowded, were women and children, and kaiila.
Mahpiyasapa and his lieutentants, with their cries, the movements of battle staffs, the blasts of war whistles, had succeeded in forming fresh lines, constructing a defensive perimeter.
We wheeled our kaiila about, taking our place in the lines.
