lumps of earth, and battered the rotten cliffs until they crumbled in a
heap by which I scrambled up again.

"I must have traveled a quarter of the moon's course before I heard the
patter of bare feet in the trail and a voice calling:--

"'Up! Take me up, Arrumpa!'

"So I took him up, quite spent with running, and yet not so worn out but
that he could smack me soundly between the eyes, as no doubt I deserved.

"'Beast of a bad heart,' he said, 'did I not tell you that to-morrow the
moon is full and the Five Chiefs hold Council?' So he had, but my thick
wits had made nothing of it. 'If you leave me this night,' said Taku,
'then they will say that my Medicine has left me and my father's place
will be given to Opata.'

"'Little Chief,' I said, 'I did not know that you had need of me, but it
came into my head that I also had need of my own people. Besides, the
brush is eaten.'

"'True, true!' he said, and drummed on my forehead. 'Take me home,' he
said at last, 'for I have followed you half the night, and I must not
seem wearied at the Council.'

"So I took him back as far as the Arch Rock which springs high over the
trail by which the men of Taku's village went out to the hunting. There
was a cleft under the wing of the Arch, close to the cliff, and every
man going out to the hunt threw a dart at it, as an omen. If it stuck,
the omen was good, but if the point of the dart broke against the face