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He had his own and Taku-Wakin's, for Taku had never dared to ask it back again, and the chief of the Turtle clan was Opata's man. "'He tells the people that my Stick will not talk to me any more. But how can it talk, Arrumpa, when you have nothing to tell it? "'Patience, I said. 'If we press the cows too hard they will break back the way they have come, and that will be worse than waiting.
It was necessary for Taku-Wakin's plan that they should go out on the other side where there was good land between the Swamp and the Sea, not claimed by the Kooskooski. We learned to eat grass that summer and squushy reeds with no strength in them did I say that all the Grass-Eaters were pot-bellied? Also I had to reason with One-Tusk, who had not loved a man, and found that the Swamp bored him.
When I was still strapped in my basket my father set me on a bear that he had killed and prayed that the bear's cunning and strength should pass into me. Taku-Wakin's people thought that the heart of Long-Hand might have gone into the Mastodon." "Why not?" agreed Arrumpa gravely. "I remember that Taku would call me Father at times, and if he was very fond of me Grandfather.
The people yelped as they thought they saw Taku fall back before him. Opata was shaking his spear, and I began to 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.
"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 the water ran out of the marsh into the sea again, and there was hard ground most of the way to Two Rivers. Every year the tribes used to go down by it to gather sea food." The Indians nodded. "It was so in our time," they said.
The Five Chiefs walked each in front of his own village, except that Taku-Wakin's own walked after Opata, and there were two of the Turtle clan, each with his own head man, and two under Apunkewis. Before all walked Taku-Wakin holding a peeled stick upright and seeing the end of the trail, but not what lay close in front of him.
It was the shadow of Taku-Wakin's bare legs. Then I knew why 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 would strike, and there is no cure for the bite of the snake called Silver Moccasin.
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