"'O yahee! O yahai!
Sweet as arrow weed in spring!'
sing that little bird to Elephant. And he stop, stop so long here by river while that little bird build her nest in his side, he turn to stone and live forever.
"Then Theeka, he sabez. He lead his beautiful girl back to chief and he say to chief: 'I have found strongest thing in world. It is love.'
"And chief, he say: 'You and your children's children shall be chiefs. I have not known love and so I die.'"
Suma-theek's mellow voice merged into the desert silence. "But the eagle and the flag?" asked Jim.
"Injuns no understand about them," replied the old chief. "You sabez the story old Suma-theek tell you?"
"I understand," replied Jim.
"Then I go home to sleep," said Suma-theek, and he left Jim alone on the Elephant's back.
Jim sat long alone on the night stars. The sense of failure was heavy upon him. Wherein, he asked himself, had he failed? How could he find himself? Was his life to be like his father's after all? Had he put off until too late the mission he had set himself so long ago, that of seeking the secret of his father's inadequacy? For a few wild moments, Jim planned to answer the Secretary's letter with his resignation, to give up the thankless fight and return—to what?