Then the Ugly Elk turned to fire with rage.
“How will you prove that?” says Ugly Elk to Forked Tongue.
Forked Tongue is ready, for Moh-Kwa has foreseen the question of Ugly Elk.
“You may prove it for yourself,” says Forked Tongue. “When you an’ Running Water are together, see if he does not turn away his head.”
That night it is as Forked Tongue said. Running Water looks up at the top of the lodge, or down at the robes on the ground, or he turns his back on Ugly Elk; but he never once rests his eyes on Ugly Elk or looks him in the face. An’ the reason is this: Forked Tongue has told Running Water that Ugly Elk complained that Running Water’s eye was evil; that his medicine told him this; an’ that he asked Forked Tongue to command Running Water not to look on him, the Ugly Elk, for ten wakes an’ ten sleeps, when the evil would have gone out of his eye.
“An’ the Ugly Elk,” says Forked Tongue, “would tell you this himse’f, but he loves you so much it would make his soul sick, an’ so he asks me.”
Running Water, who is all truth, does not look for lies in any mouth, an’ believes Forked Tongue, an’ resolves for ten sleeps an’ ten wakes not to rest his eyes on Ugly Elk.
When Ugly Elk notices how Running Water will not look on him, he chokes with anger, for he remembers he is hideous an’ believes that Running Water laughs as Forked Tongue has told him. An’ he grows so angry his mind is darkened an’ his heart made as night. He seeks out the Forked Tongue an’ says:
“Because I am weak with love for him, I cannot kill him with my hands. What shall I do, for he must die?”
Then Forked Tongue makes a long think an’ as if he is hard at work inside his head. Then he gives this counsel to Ugly Elk: