"Do not be a little fool," I said to her, at the travois. "Let Wasnapohdi help you. She is your friend."

"I can do it myself," said Winyela. "And if I do not do it will, it does not matter."

"Do not be too sure of that," I said.

"Canka would never strike me," she said. "Too, he will do whatever I want."

"Do not forget," I said, "who is the master, and who is the slave."

"In the lodge of Canka," she said, "I can do whatever I please."

"Perhaps he will find it necessary to remind you that you are a slave," I said, "that you must obey, and be pleasing perfectly, in all respects."

"Perhaps," she laughed.

"Perhaps you wish to be reminded that you are a slave," I said.

"That is absure," she said.

"Do you know that you are a slave?" I asked.

"I know it," she said, "of course."

"but do you know it in the heart, and in the heat and humility of you?" I asked.

She looked at me, puzzled.

"Do you know it in the deepest love of you?" I asked.

"I do not understand," she said.

"That is where you want to know it," I told her.

"I do not understand," she said, angrily.

"Beware," I said, "lest your secret dream come true."

"Canka will never beat me," she said. Then she drew the hide cover over the meat, to protect it from the flies.

I looked about. From where we stood I could see at least a dozen fallen animals, their bulk, like dark mounds, dotting the plains. Too, here and there, we could see women, with their kaiila and travois, working, or moving about.

"Cuwignaka and I must get back to work," I said.

"I wish you well, Slave," said she.

"I wish you well, too, Slave," I said. I then went to join Cuwignaka.

"Canka will never beat me," she called after me.

"Perhaps not," I said.

"Come, Winyela," called Wasnapohdi. "There is meat to put on the travois."

"I am coming," responded Winyela.

"My, there is a pretty girl," said Bloketu, the daughter of Watonka, the chief of the Isanna Kaiila. "but why is she wearing the dress of a white woman?"

"Perhaps she is a white female slave," said Iwoso.

"Greetings, Bloketu. Greetings, Iwoso," said Cuwignaka, grinning.

"You have cut a great deal of meat," said Bloketu, honestly observing this.

"We have already made four trips back to the village," said Cuwignaka.

I noted that both Bloketu and Iwoso were suitably impressed with this.

"How many trips have you made?" asked Cuwignaka.

"One," said Bloketu.

I was not surprised. We had seen more than one hunter, later in the afternoon, drift back to visit with her. Bloketu was a beauty, and the daughter of a chieftain.

"Iwoso is slow," said Bloketu.

"I am not slow," protested Iwoso.

"It is you who are lazy and slow, Bloketu," said Cuwignaka. "It is well known. You would rather primp, and pose and smile for the hunters than do your work."

"Oh!" cried Bloketu. Iwoso, he rhead down, smiled.

"It is not enough to be merely beautiful," said Cuwignaka.

"At least you think I am beautiful," said Bloketu, somewhat mollified.

"That is not enough," said Cuwignaka. "If you were my woman, you would be worked well. If you did not work well I would beat you."

"I suppose," she said, "you think you could work me well."

"Yes," said Cuwignaka. "I would work you well, both outside the lodge and, even better, within it."

"Oh!" said Bloketu, angrily.

"Yes," said Cuwignaka.

"I am the daughter of a chieftain," she said.

"You are only a female," he said.

"Come, Iwoso, my dear maiden," said Bloketu, "let us go. We do not need to stay here, to listen to the prattle of this silly girl in the dress of a white woman."

"You might make an excellent slave, Bloketu," said Cuwignaka. "It might be pleasant to put you in a collar."

Iwoso looked up, suddenly, her eyes blazing. Then she put her head down. I did not understand this reaction on her part.

"Oh, oh!" said Bloketu, speachless with rage.

"Hold," I said to Cuwignaka. "It is Hci."

Riding up, now, coming through the tall grass, was the young Sleen Soldier, the son of Mahpiyasapa, the chieftain of the Isbu. "You are too close to the herd," said Hci. I doubted that this was true, from the tremors in the earth, the dust and the direction of the tracks.

"I have been insulted, Hci," said Bloketu, complaining to the young man. She pointed to Cuwignaka. "Punish him!"

"Her?" asked Hci.

"Her!" said Bloketu, returning to the tribally prescrived feminine gender of Cuwignaka.

"What did she say?" asked Hci.

"SShe said that I was lazy and slow!" said Bloketu.

"Oh?" said Hci.

"And that he could work me in his lodge, and well!" she said.

"Yes?" asked Hci.

"Too, he said that I might make an excellent slave, and that it might be pleasant to put me in a collar!"

Hci looked Bloketu over, slowly. She shrank back, abashed. Cuwignaka's assessment, it seemed clear, was one for which he thought there was much to be said.

"Please, Hci," she said.

He then turned his attention to the lovely Iwoso. "She should not be wearing leggings," he said to Bloketu. "Too, her dress is too long. It should come high on her thighs."

"She is only my maiden," said Bloketu.

"Where is her collar?" asked Hci.

"I do not put her in one," said Bloketu.

"She is no longer a child," said Hci. "She is a grown woman now. She is old enough, now, for the garb and collar of a slave. She is old enough, now, for a warrior."

Iwoso looked down, angrily.

"Yellow-Knife woman," said Hci, bitterly.

She looked up at him, angrily.

"A Yellow Knife did this to me," said hci, pointing to the long, jagged scar at his chin, on the left side.

"He struck you well!" said Iwoso, angrily.

"I slew him," said Hci.

Hci then again, turned his attention to Bloketu.

"Punish him!" said Bloketu, pointing to Cuwignaka.

"Her?" said Hci.

"Her!" said Bloketu.

"I am a warrior," said Hci. "I do not mix in the squabbles of females."

"Oh," cried Bloketu, angrily.

I smiled to myself. It seemed to me that Hci had handled this business well. Surely it would have been beneath his dignity to meddle in such a business. Too, as a Sleen Soldier, on the day of a hunt, during their tenure of power, he had matters much more important to attend to than the assuagement of a female's offended vanity.

"The herd is too close," said Hci. "You are all to withdraw from this place."

We prepared to turn about.

"Separately," said Hci.

The hair rose again on the back of my neck.

"There," said Hci, pointing to the southwest, "is a fallen bull, a Cracked-Horns, of thirty winters."

"That is not good meat, or good hide," said Bloketu, puzzled.

"Attend to it, Bloketu," said Hci.

"Yes, Hci," she said. The two women, then, Bloketu and Iwoso, the travois poles making the grass behind their kaiila, took their way away. I watched the grass springing up behind them. In a few minutes it would be difficult for anyone but a skilled tracker, looking for broken stems, to determine that they had gone that way.

"Over there," said Hci, to us, pointing east by southeast, "there is a draw. In the draw there is a fallen bull, a Smooth Horns, no more than some six winters in age. Attend to it."

"Yes, Hci," said Cuwignaka, obediently. A Smooth Horns is a young, prime bull. Its horns are not yet cracked from fighting and age. The smoothness of the horns, incidentally, is not a purely natural phenomenon. The bulls polish them, themselves, rubbing them against sloping banks and trees. Sometimes they will even paw down earth from the upper sides of washouts and then use the harder, exposed material beneath, dust scattering about, as a polishing surface. This polishing apparently has the function of both cleaning and sharpening the horns, two precesses useful in intraspecific aggression, the latter process imporving their capacity as fighting instruments, in slashing and goring, and the former process tending to reduce the amount of infection in a herd resulting from such combats. Polishing behavior in males thus appears to be selected for. It has consequences, at any rate, which seem to be in the best intrests of the kailiauk as a species.