said, as though it were no more matter than that. 'Now we shall have the
less to carry.' But the mother of Taku-Wakin made a terrible outcry. In
the place where her hut had been she had found the Talking Stick of
Taku's father, trampled to splinters.

"She had had it all the time hidden in her bundle. Long-Hand had told
her it was Magic Medicine and she must never let any one have it. _She_
thought it was the only thing that had kept her and her children safe on
this journey. But Taku told them that it was his father's Rod which had
bewitched them and kept them from going any farther because it had come
to the end of its knowledge. Now they would be free to follow his own
Stick, which was so much wiser. So he caught their minds as he had
caught the Stick, swinging back from disaster. For this is the way with
men, if they have reason which suits them they do not care whether it is
reasonable or not. It was sufficient for them, one crooked stick being
broken, that they should rise up with a shout and follow another."

Arrumpa was silent so long that the children fidgeted.

"But it couldn't have been just as easy as that," Dorcas insisted. "And
what did they do when they got to the sea finally?"

"They complained of the fishy taste of everything," said Arrumpa; "also
they suffered on the way for lack of food, and Apunkewis was eaten by an
alligator. Then they were afraid again when they came to the place
beyond the Swamp where the water went to and fro as the sea pushed it,
until some of the old men remembered they had heard it was the sea's
custom. Twice daily the water came in as if to feed on the marsh grass.
Great clouds of gulls flew inland, screaming down the wind, and across
the salt flats they had their first sight of the low, hard land.