"It was two days before Scrag stopped running.

"From the Grass Flats on to the Islands it was all one reed-bed where
the water gathered into runnels between hummocks of rotten rushes, where
no trail would lie and any false step might plunge you into black bog to
the shoulder. About halfway we found the tiger-skin tramped into the
mire, but as soon as we struck the Islands I turned back, for I was in
need of good oak browse, and I wished to find out what had become of
Taku-Wakin. It was not until one evening when I had come well up into
the hills for a taste of fir, that I saw him, black against the sun with
the tribe behind him. 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.
He did not even see me as I slipped around the procession and left a wet
trail for him to follow.

"That was how we crossed to the Islands, village by village, with
Taku-Wakin close on my trail, which was the trail of the Grass-Eaters.
They swam the sloughs with their children on their shoulders, and made
rafts of reeds to push their food bundles over. By night they camped on
the hummocks and built fires that burned for days in the thick litter of
reeds. Red reflections glanced like fishes along the water. Then there
would be the drums and the--the thunder-twirler--"

"But what kept him so long and how did he persuade them?" Dorcas Jane
squirmed with curiosity.

"He'd been a long time working out the trail through the canebrake,"