In this moment, its attention fastened on the girl, on tearing away the obstacle which lay between him and her. I thrust through the smaller opening and, with a swirl of rope and two hitches, fastened the hoggling log on its right leg. I then screamed and thrust at it, and it spun about. I fended its beak away with my forearm.

"Well done!" cried Cuwignaka, sprining up from the grass. He interposed himself, and a lance, between me and the predator. The beak snapped the lance off short. Hci, swinging ropes, crying out, emerged, too, from the nearby grass. Cuwignaka and I backed off. The bird, smiting its wings, darted towards us but, screaming, fell short on its belly in the grass, feathers flying about. It only then realized it was impeded. It turned about, wildly, the leg, and rope, turning under him. Cuwignaka struck it on the beak with the shaft of the lance, distracting it. Hci, running up, struck it with the coils of rope in his hand. The bird, then, rising up, wings beating, took flight, jerking the hobbling log from the pit, tearing it up through the sod roof and poles.

"Strong! Strong! Marvelous!" cried Cuwignaka.

He had not understood the strength of such a creature.

Struggling, wings beating, screaming, the bird, lunging and falling, and climbing again, fought the weight. It struggled to perhaps a hundred feet in the air and then, bit by bit, the log swinging, fighting, it began to lose altitude. Cuwignaka and Hci ran beneath it, in the grass. I wiped sweat from my forehead. I was elated.

I returned to the pit, its roof now half torn away. In one end of it the girl crouched. I leaped down into the pit beside her. "On your belly," I told her. I then pulled her right ankle, to which the tether was still tightly attached, high, up behind her. With some of the tether, close to the knot on her right ankle, I tied her hands together behind her back. I then looked down upon her, she now on her side, with her wrists tied behind her, fastened to her right ankle, pulled up, closely behind her. She was well secured. I then, with extra ropes taken from the pit, went to aid Cuwignaka and Hci.

"It is a splendid catch," I said.

Ropes bound the beak of the bird tightly shut. It la on its side. Its two feet, too, were bound together. Ropes, as well, encircled its wings, binding them to its body. Already we ad put a girth rope about it, of the sort beneath which the Kinyanpi, in flight, inserted their knees.

It was now late afternoon.

We had transported the bird to this grove of trees on a travois, drawn by two kaiila. It was only a pasang or so from the pit, which we had rebuilt.

The bird struggled, and then lay still.

"A splendid catch," I said.

"We must try again, tomorrow," said cuwignaka.

"Yes," I said.

We then turned about, and walked to another part of the grove. It was in this part of the grove that we had our kaiila tethered, and had made our camp.

There, near our things, stood my slave, who had once been the lofty Lady Mira, of Venna, an agent of Kurii.

I looked at her. She lowered her eyes.

"Fetch me a coiled rope," I told her. "And then get on all fours."

She did so.

"You ran twice," I told her.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

"Then once, frozen with fear, you needed to be dragged, perforce, into the pit."

"Forgive me, Master," she begged.

"I am not pleased," I said.

"Forgive me, Master!" she begged.

Cuwignaka and Hci stood by while the slave was beaten. Then I cast aside the coiled ropes, to a place among my other things. She lay now at my feet, on her belly, shuddering and sobbing, clutching at the grass.

"Now," I said, "get up and put out our food."

"Yes, Master," she said, struggling to her feet.

"And tonight," I said, "after we have eater, and when we are sitting about, you will serve each of us in turn, and for as many rounds as we wish."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And furthermore," I said, "you will do so with absolute obedience and in complete silence."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"It will be a pleasant evening," said Cuwignaka.

"Yes," said Hci, "but there is another whom I would rather have in my thongs."

"I think I knw who she is," laughed Cuwignaka.

"And is there not one," asked Hci, "whom you, my friend, Cuwignaka, would rather have licking your feet in terror?"

"Perhpas," smiled Cuwignaka.

"The pit is slow work, Tatankasa, Mitakola," said Hci. "Even with good fortune we cannot snare enough tarns by winter to combat the Kinyanpi."

"Using the pit, I hope to catch only two or three," I said.

"That will not be enough," said Hci.

"Not in themselves," I admitted.

"Ah!" said Hci. "But that will be very difficult and dangerous."

"I do not see another way," I said. "Do you?"

"No," said Hci.

"Are you with us?" I asked.

"Of course," he said.

We then went and sat down where Mira, on leaves, had set forth our food.

We chewed the cold pemmican. We would not make a fire in this place.

From time to time, chewing, we cast a glance at Mira. She knelt to one side, her head down.

She was very beautiful. It was difficult not to anticipate the pleasures we would later recieve from her.

I threw her a piece of pemmican.

The three moons, visible through the brances, had risen.

I looked again at Mira.

She lifted her head, chewing, and our eyes met. Then she looked down, again, shyly, smiling.

She was a common slave, who, tonight, would serve us as a slave in common.

"It is exhausted, but it is still dangerous!" I cried. I held one end of the rope about the flopping bird's neck, keeping it taut, and Hci, on the other side, held the other. "Be careful," I called to Cuwignaka.

Speaking soothingly, he approached the bird.

We were in the vicinity of the tarn pit. This was the second tarn we had caught. The first one we had caught yesterday.

Cuwignaka suddenly leaped forward and locked his arms about the bird's beak. He was almost thrown loose as the bird shook his head. Holding the beak with one arm, then, he whipped rope about it and, in moments, had tied it closed. In a few moments we had secured its wings and then, working together, Hci and I, bound its legs together.

I took the boggling rope from its right ankle, that which had fastened it to the hobbling log. It shuddered, lying on its side. "It is ready for the travois," I said.

I then turned about and went back to the tarn pit. Its roof was gone, torn away and scattered when the concealed hobbling log had been jerked upward though it.

I looked down into the pit. The girl lay on her stomach, her hands over her head, shuddering and sobbing below me.

"Are you all right?" I asked. I had not bothered, this time, to bind her.

"Did I not please you last night?" she sobbed.

"Yes," I said, puzzled.

"but you put me out on the tether," she said.

"Of course," I said.

Her body trembled, uncontrollably.

"It is over now," I told her. "We have it."

She sobbed, hysterically. I did not think she could control the movements of her body. "You did not do badly," I assured her.

She whimpered, shuddering.

"Why are you so upset?" I asked.

She sobbed, hysterically, shuddering. To be sure, it had been a close thing.

I slipped into the pit beside her and took her in my arms. "It is over now," I reassured her. "It is all right now."

She looked at me, her eyes wide, frightened. "What you can make us do," she gasped. I stroked her head, gently. I had once seen a similar hysteria in an urt hunter's girl, in Port Kar. She had barely missed being taken by a giant urt in the canals. But the spear thrust of the hunter had been unerring and turned the urt at the last instant and the second thrust had finished it off. Girls in Port Kar will do almost anything to keep the rope off their neck and keep out of the canals. To be sure it is normally only low girls or girls who may have displeased a master in some respect who are used for such work.