"He hugged the arrows to his breast and laughed over them, so I hugged
him with my trunk, and we agreed that once in every full moon I was to
come to Burnt Woods, and wait until he called me with something that he
took from his girdle and twirled on a thong. I do not know what it was
called, but it had a voice like young thunder.

"Like this?" The Mound-Builder cut the air with an oddly shaped bit of
wood swung on an arm's-length of string, once lightly, like a covey of
quail rising, and then loud like a wind in the full-branched forest.

"Just such another. Thrice he swung it so that I might not mistake the
sound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, with
the moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulk
between the huts for scraps, slinking off as he spoke to them."

"And did they--the Five Chiefs, I mean--have respect for his arrows?"
Dorcas Jane wondered.

"So he told me. They came from all the nine villages and sat in a
council ring, each with the elders of his village behind him, and in
front his favorite weapon, tied with eagle feathers for enemies he had
slain, and red marks for battles, and other signs and trophies. At the
head of the circle there was the spear of Long-Hand, and a place left
for the one who should be elected to sit in it. 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. Around the ring of the chiefs and elders ran a growl like
the circling of thunder in sultry weather, and immediately it was turned
into coughing; every man trying to eat his own exclamation, for, as he
sat, Taku laid out, in place of a trophy, the five arrows.