"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. Like it, they would be
thrown and come back to the hand of Taku-Wakin for his own purposes.

"He was a clever man, was Opata. He was a fine tall man, beaked like an
eagle, and as he moved about in the clear space by the fire, making a
pantomime of all he said, as their way is in speech-making, he began to
take hold on the minds of the people. Taku-Wakin watched sidewise; he
saw the snake writhing on the ground and the unstopped water-bottle with
the ground dry under it. I think he suspected. I saw a little ripple go
over his naked body as if a thought had struck him. He stepped aside
once, and as Opata came at him, threatening and accusing, he changed his
place again, ever so slightly. The people yelped as they thought they
saw Taku fall back before him. Opata was shaking his spear, and I began
to wonder if I had not waited too long to come to Taku-Wakin's rescue,
when suddenly Opata stopped still in his tracks and shuddered. He went
gray in the fire-light, and--he was a brave man who knew his death when
he had met it--from beside his foot he lifted up the broken-backed snake
on his spear-point. Even as he held it up for all of them to see, his
limbs began to jerk and stiffen.

"I went back to look for One-Tusk. The end of those who are bitten by
the moccasin is not pretty to see, and besides, I had business. 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