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Updated: August 11, 2024
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! he shouted, "'Great are the people They 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.
They waited to see what Opata would do about it. "Opata stood up. He was a brave man, I think, for the Stick was Magic to him, 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 false stick and Taku-Wakin a Two-Talker. Taku-Wakin could no more lead them out of the Swamp than his stick would leave him.
If the Talking Stick which had led them there was not a liar, let it talk again and show them the way to their sea. Let it talk! And at last, when they had screeched themselves hoarse, they were quiet long enough to hear it. "Little and young, Taku-Wakin looked, standing up with his Stick in his hand, and the words coming slowly as if he waited for them to reach him from far off.
"'And if I do not get them forward soon, said Taku-Wakin, 'the people will break back, and my father will be proved a fool. I am too little for this thing, Grandfather, he would say, leaning against my trunk, and I would take him up and comfort him.
But before the Council had time to begin, came Taku-Wakin with his arms folded though he told me it was to hide how his heart jumped in his bosom and took his father's seat.
One-Tusk and I walked through all nine villages...and when we had come out on the other side there were not two sticks of them laid together. Then the people came and looked and were afraid, and Taku-Wakin came and made a sound as when a man drops a ripe paw-paw on the ground. 'Pr-r-utt! he said, as though it were no more matter than that.
"That was the way always with Taku-Wakin, he kept all the god customs of the people, but he never doubted, when he had found what he wanted to do, that the gods would be on his side. He showed me how every arrow was a little different from the others in the way the blood drain was cut or the shaft feathered. "'No fear, he said. 'Every man will know his own when I come to the Council.
We saw them naked on the rocks, and then with a great shout join hands as they ran all together down the naked sand to worship the sea. But Taku-Wakin walked by himself..." "And did you stay there with him?" asked Oliver when he saw by the stir in the audience that the story was quite finished. "We went back that winter One-Tusk and I; in time they all went," said Arrumpa.
"They bedded at the Grass Flats, but until Scrag herself had a mind to take the trail to the Squidgy Islands, there was nobody but Saber-Tooth could 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 and sewed up with small stones inside it.
It rolled into the cleared space toward Taku-Wakin, and the grass ball which stopped its mouth fell out unnoticed. But no water came out! "Many of the waters of the Swamp were bitter and caused sickness, so it was no new thing for a man to have his own water-bottle at Council. But why should he carry a stopped bottle and no water in it?
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