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  IV

  THE SECOND PART OF THE MASTODON STORY CONCERNING THE TRAIL TO THE SEAAND THE TALKING STICK OF TAKU-WAKIN

  "It was the Talking Stick of his father that Taku-Wakin wanted," saidArrumpa. "He still thought Opata might have it, for every now and thenTaku would catch him coming back with marsh mud on his moccasins. Thatwas how I began to understand that the Great Plan was really a plan tofind a way _through_ the marsh to the sea on the other side of it.

  "'Opata has the Stick,' said Taku, 'but it will not talk to him;therefore he goes, as my father did, when the waters are low and thehummocks of hard ground stand up, to find a safe way for the tribe tofollow. But my father had worked as far as the Grass Flats and beyondthem, to a place of islands.'

  "'Squidgy Islands,' I told him. 'The Grass-Eaters go there to drop theircalves every season.' Taku kicked me behind the ears.

  "'Said I not you were a beast of a bad heart!' he scolded. But howshould I know he would care to hear about a lot of silly Mammoths.'Also,' he said, 'you are my Medicine. You shall find me the trail ofthe Talking Stick, and I, Taku, son of Long-Hand, shall leadthe people.'

  "'In six moons,' I told him, 'the Grass-Eaters go to the Islands tocalve--'

  "'In which time,' said Taku, 'the chiefs will have quarreled six times,and Opata will have eaten me. Drive them, Arrumpa, drive them!'

  "Umph, uh-ump!" chuckled the old beast reminiscently. "We drove; wedrove. What else was there to do? Taku-Wakin was my man. Besides, it wasgreat fun. One-Tusk helped me. He was one of our bachelor herd who hadlost a tusk in his first fight, which turned out greatly to hisadvantage. He would come sidling up to a refractory young cow with hiseyes twinkling, and before anybody suspected he could give such a prodwith his one tusk as sent her squealing.... But that came afterward. TheMammoth herd that fed on our edge of the Great Swamp was led by awrinkled old cow, wise beyond belief. Scrag we called her. She wouldtake the herd in to the bedding-ground by the river, to a landing-pointon the opposite side, never twice the same, and drift noiselesslythrough the canebrake, choosing blowy hours when the swish of cane overwoolly backs was like the run of the wind. Days when the marsh would befull of tapirs wallowing and wild pig rootling and fighting, there mightbe hundreds feeding within sound of you and not a hint of it except theoccasional _toot-toot_ of some silly cow calling for Scrag, or a youngbull blowing water.

  "They bedded at the Grass Flats, but until Scrag herself had a mind totake the trail to the Squidgy Islands, there was nobody but Saber-Toothcould persuade her.

  "'Then Saber-Tooth shall help us,' said my man.

  "Not for nothing was he called Taku-Wakin, which means 'The Wonderful.'He brought a tiger cub's skin of his father's killing, dried stiff andsewed up with small stones inside it. At one end there was a thong witha loop in it, and it smelled of tiger. I could see the tip of One-Tusk'strunk go up with a start every time he winded it. There was a curledmoon high up in the air like a feather, and a moon-white tusk glintinghere and there, where the herds drifted across the flats. There was notrouble about our going among them so long as Scrag did not wind us._They_ claimed to be kin to us, and they cared nothing for Man even whenthey smelled him. We came sidling up to a nervous young cow, and Takudropped from my neck long enough to slip the thong over a hind foot asshe lifted it. The thong was wet at first and scarcely touched her.Presently it tightened. Then the cow shook her foot to free it and theskin rattled. She squealed nervously and started out to find Scrag, whowas feeding on the far side of the hummock, and at every step thetiger-skin rattled and bounced against her. Eyes winked red with alarmand trunks came lifting out of the tall grass like serpents. One-Tuskmoved silently, prod-prodding; we could hear the click of ivory and thebunting of shoulder against shoulder. Then some silly cow had a whiff ofthe skin that bounded along in their tracks like a cat, and raised thecry of 'Tiger! Tiger!' Far on the side from us, in the direction of theSquidgy Islands, Scrag trumpeted, followed by frantic splashing as thefrightened herd plunged into the reed-beds. Taku slipped from my neck,shaking with laughter.

  "'Follow, follow,' he said; 'I go to bring up the people.'

  "It was two days before Scrag stopped running.

  "From the Grass Flats on to the Islands it was all one reed-bed wherethe water gathered into runnels between hummocks of rotten rushes, whereno trail would lie and any false step might plunge you into black bog tothe shoulder. About halfway we found the tiger-skin tramped into themire, but as soon as we struck the Islands I turned back, for I was inneed of good oak browse, and I wished to find out what had become ofTaku-Wakin. It was not until one evening when I had come well up intothe hills for a taste of fir, that I saw him, black against the sun withthe tribe behind him. The Five Chiefs walked each in front of his ownvillage, except that Taku-Wakin's own walked after Opata, and there weretwo of the Turtle clan, each with his own head man, and two underApunkewis. Before all walked Taku-Wakin holding a peeled stick uprightand seeing the end of the trail, but not what lay close in front of him.He did not even see me as I slipped around the procession and left a wettrail for him to follow.

  "That was how we crossed to the Islands, village by village, withTaku-Wakin close on my trail, which was the trail of the Grass-Eaters.They swam the sloughs with their children on their shoulders, and maderafts of reeds to push their food bundles over. By night they camped onthe hummocks and built fires that burned for days in the thick litter ofreeds. Red reflections glanced like fishes along the water. Then therewould be the drums and the--the thunder-twirler--"

  "But what kept him so long and how did he persuade them?" Dorcas Janesquirmed with curiosity.

  "He'd been a long time working out the trail through the canebrake,"said Arrumpa, "making a Talking Stick as his father had taught him; onering for a day's journey, one straight mark for so many man's paces;notches for turns. When he could not remember his father's marks he madeup others. When he came to his village again he found they had all goneover to Opata's. Apunkewis, who had the two villages under Black Rockand was a friend of Long-Hand, told him that there would be a Sign.

  "'There will,' said Taku-Wakin, 'but I shall bring it.' He knew thatOpata meant mischief, but he could not guess what. All the way toOpata's his thought went round and round like a fire-stick in thehearth-hole. When he heard the drums he flared up like a spark in thetinder. Earlier in the evening there had been a Big Eating at Opata's,and now the men were dancing.

  "'_Eyah, eyah!_' they sang.

  "Taku-Wakin whirled like a spark into the ring. '_Eyah, eyah!_' heshouted,--

  "'Great are the peopleThey have found a sign,The sign of the Talking Rod!Eyah! My people!'

  "He planted it full in the firelight where it rocked and beckoned.'_Eyah_, the rod is calling,' he sang.

  "The moment he had sight of Opata's face he knew that whatever the chiefhad meant to do, he did not have his father's Stick. Taku caught up hisown and twirled it, and finally he hid it under his coat, for if any onehad handled it he could have seen that this was not the Stick ofLong-Hand, but fresh-peeled that season. But because Opata wanted theStick of Long-Hand, he thought any stick of Taku's must be the one hewanted. And what Opata thought, the rest of the tribe thought also. Sothey rose up by clans and villages and followed after the Sign. That washow we came to the Squidgy Islands. There were willows there and youngalders and bare knuckles of rock holding up the land.

  "Beyond that the Swamp began; the water gathered itself into bayous thatwent slinking, wolflike, between the trees, or rose like a wolf throughthe earth and stole it from under your very foot. It doubled into blacklagoons to doze, and young snakes coiled on the lily-pads, so that whenthe sun warmed them you could hear the shi-shisi-ss like a wind rising.Also by night there would be greenish lights that followed the trailsfor a while and went out suddenly in whistling noises. Now and then inbroad day the Swamp would fall asleep. There would be the plop ofturtles falling into the creek and the slither of alligators in the mud,and all of a sudden not a ripple would start, an
d between the clackingof one reed and another would come the soundless lift and stir of theSwamp snoring. Then the hair on your neck would rise, and some mancaught walking alone in it would go screaming mad with fear.

  "Six moons we had to stay in that place, for Scrag had hidden the herdso cleverly that it was not until the week-old calves began to squeakfor their mothers that we found them. And from the time they were ableto run under their mother's bodies, One-Tusk and I kept watch and watchto see that they did not break back to the Squidgy Islands. It wasnecessary for Taku-Wakin's plan that they should go out on the otherside where there was good land between the Swamp and the Sea, notclaimed by the Kooskooski. We learned to eat grass that summer andsquushy reeds with no strength in them--did I say that all theGrass-Eaters were pot-bellied? Also I had to reason with One-Tusk, whohad not loved a man, and found that the Swamp bored him. By this time,too, Scrag knew what we were after; she covered her trail and crossed itas many times as a rabbit. Then, just as we thought we had it, the wolfwater came and gnawed the trail in two.

  "Taku-Wakin would come to me by the Black Lagoon and tell me how Opataworked to make himself chief of the nine villages. He had his own andTaku-Wakin's, for Taku had never dared to ask it back again, and thechief of the Turtle clan was Opata's man.

  "'He tells the people that my Stick will not talk to me any more. Buthow can it talk, Arrumpa, when you have nothing to tell it?'

  "'Patience,' I said. 'If we press the cows too hard they will break backthe way they have come, and that will be worse than waiting.'

  "'And if I do not get them forward soon,' said Taku-Wakin, 'the peoplewill break back, and my father will be proved a fool. I am too littlefor this thing, Grandfather,' he would say, leaning against my trunk,and I would take him up and comfort him.

  "As for Opata, I used to see him sometimes, dancing alone to increasehis magic power,--I speak but as the people of Taku-Wakin spoke,--andonce at the edge of the lagoon, catching snakes. Opata had made a nooseof hair at the end of a peeled switch, and he would snare them as theydarted like streaks through the water. I saw him cast away some that hecaught, and others he dropped into a wicker basket, one with a narrowneck such as women used for water. How was I to guess what he wantedwith them? But the man smelled of mischief. It lay in the thick air likethe smell of the lagoons; by night you could hear it throbbing with thedrums that scared away the wandering lights from the nine villages.

  "Scrag was beginning to get the cows together again; but by that timethe people had made up their minds to stay where they were. They builtthemselves huts on platforms above the water and caught turtles inthe bayous.

  "'Opata has called a Council,' Taku told me, 'to say that I must make myStick talk, or they will know me for a deceiver, a maker of short lifefor them.'

  "'Short life to him,' I said. 'In three nights or four, the Grass-Eaterswill be moving.'

  "'And my people are fast in the mud,' said Taku-Wakin. 'I am a mud-headmyself to think a crooked rod could save them.' He took it from hisgirdle warped by the wet and the warmth of his body. 'My heart is sick,Arrumpa, and Opata makes them a better chief than I, for I have onlytried to find them their sea again. But Opata understands them. This isa foolish tale that will never be finished.'

  "He loosed the stick from his hand over the black water like a boyskipping stones, but--this is a marvel--it turned as it flew and cameback to Taku-Wakin so that he had to take it in his hand or it wouldhave struck him. He stood looking at it astonished, while the moon cameup and made dart-shaped ripples of light behind the swimming snakes inthe black water. For he saw that if the Stick would not leave him,neither could he forsake--Is this also known to you?" For he saw thechildren smiling.

  The Indian who leaned against Moke-icha's boulder drew a crooked stick,shaped something like an elbow, from under his blanket. Twice he tossedit lightly and twice it flew over the heads of the circle and back likea homing pigeon as he lightly caught it.

  "Boomerangs!" cried the children, delighted.

  "We called it the Stick-which-kills-flying," said the Indian, and hid itagain under his blanket.

  "Taku-Wakin thought it Magic Medicine," said the Mastodon. "It was aSign to him. Two or three times he threw the stick and always it cameback to him. He was very quiet, considering what it might mean, as Itook him back between the trees that stood knee-deep in the smellywater. We saw the huts at last, built about in a circle and the sacredfire winking in the middle. I remembered the time I had watched withTaku under the Arch Rock.

  "'Give me leave,' I said, 'to walk among the huts, and see what will comeof it.'

  "Taku-Wakin slapped my trunk.

  "'Now by the oath of my people, you shall walk,' he said. 'If the herdsbegin to move, and if no hurt comes to anybody by it, you shall walk;for as long as they are comfortable, even though the Rod should speak,they would not listen.'

  "The very next night Scrag began to move her cows out toward the hardland, and when I had marked her trail for five man journeys, I came backto look for Taku-Wakin. There was a great noise of singing a little backfrom the huts at the Dancing-Place, and all the drums going, and thesmoke that drifted along the trails had the smell of a Big Eating. Istole up in the dark till I could look over the heads of the villagerssquatted about the fire. Opata was making a speech to them. He wasworking himself into a rage over the wickedness of Taku-Wakin. He wouldstrike the earth with his stone-headed spear as he talked, and the tribewould yelp after him like wolves closing in on a buck. If the TalkingStick which had led them there was not a liar, let it talk again andshow them the way to their sea. Let it talk! And at last, when they hadscreeched themselves hoarse, they were quiet long enough to hear it.

  "Little and young, Taku-Wakin looked, standing up with his Stick in hishand, and the words coming slowly as if he waited for them to reach himfrom far off. The Stick was no liar, he said; it was he who had lied tothem; he had let them think that this was his father's Stick. It was anew stick much more powerful, as he would yet show them. And who was heto make it talk when it would not? Yet it would talk soon...verysoon...he had heard it whispering... Let them not vex the Stick lest itspeak strange and unthought-of things...

  "Oh, but he was well called 'The Wonderful.' I could see the heads ofthe tribesmen lifting like wolves taking a new scent, and motherstighten their clutch on their children. Also I saw Opata. Him I watched,for he smelt of mischief. His water-basket was beside him, and as thepeople turned from baiting Taku-Wakin to believing him, I saw Opata pushthe bottle secretly with his spear-butt. It rolled into the clearedspace toward Taku-Wakin, and the grass ball which stopped its mouth fellout unnoticed. _But no water came out!_

  "Many of the waters of the Swamp were bitter and caused sickness, so itwas no new thing for a man to have his own water-bottle at Council. Butwhy should he carry a stopped bottle and no water in it? Thus I watched,while Taku-Wakin played for his life with the people's minds, and Opatawatched neither the people nor him, but the unstopped mouth of thewater-bottle.

  "I looked where Opata looked, for I said to myself, from that pointcomes the mischief, and looking I saw a streak of silver pour out of themouth of the bottle and coil and lift and make as a snake will for thenearest shadow. It was the shadow of Taku-Wakin's bare legs. Then I knewwhy Opata smelled of mischief when he had caught snakes in the lagoon.But I was afraid to speak, for I saw that if Taku moved the snake wouldstrike, and there is no cure for the bite of the snake calledSilver Moccasin.

  "Everybody's eyes were on the rod but mine and Opata's, and as I sawTaku straighten to throw, I lifted my voice in the dark and trumpeted,'Snake! Snake!' Taku leaped, but he knew my voice and he was not sofrightened as the rest of them, who began falling on their faces. Takuleaped as the Silver Moccasin lifted to strike, and the stick as it flewout of his hand, low down like a skimming bird, came back in acircle--he must have practiced many times with it--and dropped the snakewith its back broken. The people put their hands over their mouths. Theyhad not seen the snake at all, bu
t a stick that came back to thethrower's hand was magic. They waited to see what Opata would doabout it.

  "Opata stood up. He was a brave man, I think, for the Stick was Magic tohim, also, and yet he stood out against it. Black Magic he said it was,and no wonder it had not led them out of the Swamp, since it was a falsestick and Taku-Wakin a Two-Talker. Taku-Wakin could no more lead themout of the Swamp than his stick would leave him. Like it, they would bethrown and come back to the hand of Taku-Wakin for his own purposes.

  "He was a clever man, was Opata. He was a fine tall man, beaked like aneagle, and as he moved about in the clear space by the fire, making apantomime of all he said, as their way is in speech-making, he began totake hold on the minds of the people. Taku-Wakin watched sidewise; hesaw the snake writhing on the ground and the unstopped water-bottle withthe ground dry under it. I think he suspected. I saw a little ripple goover his naked body as if a thought had struck him. He stepped asideonce, and as Opata came at him, threatening and accusing, he changed hisplace again, ever so slightly. The people yelped as they thought theysaw Taku fall back before him. Opata was shaking his spear, and I beganto wonder if I had not waited too long to come to Taku-Wakin's rescue,when suddenly Opata stopped still in his tracks and shuddered. He wentgray in the fire-light, and--he was a brave man who knew his death whenhe had met it--from beside his foot he lifted up the broken-backed snakeon his spear-point. Even as he held it up for all of them to see, hislimbs began to jerk and stiffen.

  "I went back to look for One-Tusk. The end of those who are bitten bythe moccasin is not pretty to see, and besides, I had business. One-Tuskand I walked through all nine villages...and when we had come out on theother side there were not two sticks of them laid together. Then thepeople came and looked and were afraid, and Taku-Wakin came and made asound as when a man drops a ripe paw-paw on the ground. 'Pr-r-utt!' hesaid, as though it were no more matter than that. 'Now we shall have theless to carry.' But the mother of Taku-Wakin made a terrible outcry. Inthe place where her hut had been she had found the Talking Stick ofTaku's father, trampled to splinters.

  "She had had it all the time hidden in her bundle. Long-Hand had toldher it was Magic Medicine and she must never let any one have it. _She_thought it was the only thing that had kept her and her children safe onthis journey. But Taku told them that it was his father's Rod which hadbewitched them and kept them from going any farther because it had cometo the end of its knowledge. Now they would be free to follow his ownStick, which was so much wiser. So he caught their minds as he hadcaught the Stick, swinging back from disaster. For this is the way withmen, if they have reason which suits them they do not care whether it isreasonable or not. It was sufficient for them, one crooked stick beingbroken, that they should rise up with a shout and follow another."

  Arrumpa was silent so long that the children fidgeted.

  "But it couldn't have been just as easy as that," Dorcas insisted. "Andwhat did they do when they got to the sea finally?"

  "They complained of the fishy taste of everything," said Arrumpa; "alsothey suffered on the way for lack of food, and Apunkewis was eaten by analligator. Then they were afraid again when they came to the placebeyond the Swamp where the water went to and fro as the sea pushed it,until some of the old men remembered they had heard it was the sea'scustom. Twice daily the water came in as if to feed on the marsh grass.Great clouds of gulls flew inland, screaming down the wind, and acrossthe salt flats they had their first sight of the low, hard land.

  "We lost them there, for we could not eat the salt grass, and Scrag hadturned north by a mud slough where the waters were bitter, and red mossgrew on the roots of the willows. We ate for a quarter of the moon'scourse before we went back around the hard land to see what had becomeof Taku-Wakin. We fed as far as there was any browse between the sea andthe marsh, and at last we saw them come, across the salt pastures. Theywere sleek as otters with the black slime of the sloughs, and there wasnot a garment left on them which had not become water-soaked anduseless. Some of the women had made slips of sea-birds' skins and netsof marsh grass for carrying their young. It was only by these thingsthat you could tell that they were Man. They came out where the hardland thinned to a tusk, thrust far out into the white froth and thethunder. We saw them naked on the rocks, and then with a great shoutjoin hands as they ran all together down the naked sand to worship thesea. But Taku-Wakin walked by himself..."

  "And did you stay there with him?" asked Oliver when he saw by the stirin the audience that the story was quite finished.

  "We went back that winter--One-Tusk and I; in time they all went," saidArrumpa. "It was too cold by the sea in winter. And the land changed.Even in Taku-Wakin's time it changed greatly. The earth shook and thewater ran out of the marsh into the sea again, and there was hard groundmost of the way to Two Rivers. Every year the tribes used to go down byit to gather sea food."

  The Indians nodded.

  "It was so in our time," they said. "There were great heaps of shells bythe sea where we came and dried fish and feasted."

  "Shell Mounds," said Oliver. "I've heard of those, too. But I neverthought they had stories about them."

  "There is a story about everything," said the Buffalo Chief; and by thistime the children were quite ready to believe him.