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You shall find me the trail of the Talking Stick, and I, Taku, son of Long-Hand, shall lead the people. "'In six moons, I told him, 'the Grass-Eaters go to the Islands to calve "'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; we drove.
'He is mine to kill, he said, 'according to custom. He is my Arrumpa, and I call the tribe to witness. Not one of you shall lay hands on him until one of us has killed the other. "Then I lifted up my trunk over him, for my heart swelled against the hunters, and I gave voice as a bull should when he walks by himself. "'Arr-rr-ump! I said. And the people were all silent with astonishment.
"I had not come to my full size then, but I was a good weight for my years," said Arrumpa modestly, "a very good weight, and it was my weight that saved me, for the edge of the ravine that opened suddenly in front of me crumbled, so that I came down into the bottom of it with a great mass of rubbish and broken stone, with a twisted knee, and very much astonished.
He was not in the least afraid, but very angry. "'I hate you, Arrumpa, he said, 'because you have killed my father. I am too little to kill you for it now, but when I am a man I shall kill you. He struck me with his fists. 'Put me down, Man-Killer! "So I put him down. What else was there to do?
He looked about the company for permission to begin, and then addressed himself to Arrumpa. "You spoke, Chief Two-Tails, of the 'tame wolves' of Taku-Wakin; were they wolves, or " "Very like you, Wolfling, now that I think of it," agreed the Mastodon, "and they were not tame exactly; they ran at the heels of the hunters for what they could pick up, and sometimes they drove up game for him."
'My heart is sick, Arrumpa, and Opata makes them a better chief than I, for I have only tried to find them their sea again. But Opata understands them. This is a foolish tale that will never be finished.
So he caught their minds as he had caught the Stick, swinging back from disaster. For this is the way with men, if they have reason which suits them they do not care whether it is reasonable or not. It was sufficient for them, one crooked stick being broken, that they should rise up with a shout and follow another." Arrumpa was silent so long that the children fidgeted.
The Great Cold that Arrumpa speaks about must have been the Ice Age, that geologists tell us once covered the continent of North America, almost down to the Ohio River. It came and went slowly, and probably so changed the climate that the elephants, tigers, camels, and other animals that used to be found in the United States could no longer live in it.
"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; one ring 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 made up others. When he came to his village again he found they had all gone over to Opata's.
If I had but a Sign to keep them from making Opata chief... So he drummed on my head with his heels while I leaned against the Arch Rock oh, yes, I can sleep very comfortably, standing and the moon slid down the hill until it shone clear under the rock and touched the feathered butts of the arrows. Then Taku woke me. "'Up, put me up, Arrumpa!
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