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. What else was there to do? Taku-Wakin was my man. Besides, it was
great fun. One-Tusk helped me. He was one of our bachelor herd who had
lost a tusk in his first fight, which turned out greatly to his
advantage. He would come sidling up to a refractory young cow with his
eyes twinkling, and before anybody suspected he could give such a prod
with his one tusk as sent her squealing.... But that came afterward. The
Mammoth herd that fed on our edge of the Great Swamp was led by a
wrinkled old cow, wise beyond belief. Scrag we called her. She would
take the herd in to the bedding-ground by the river, to a landing-point
on the opposite side, never twice the same, and drift noiselessly
through the canebrake, choosing blowy hours when the swish of cane over
woolly backs was like the run of the wind. Days when the marsh would be
full of tapirs wallowing and wild pig rootling and fighting, there might
be hundreds feeding within sound of you and not a hint of it except the
occasional _toot-toot_ of some silly cow calling for Scrag, or a young
bull blowing water.

"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.