"I waited a minute to allow this announcement to have its full effect, and then requested that, in deference to his exalted position, my honored brother, the medicine-man, should be the first to test the potency of my magic.
"I could see that he was very reluctant to do any such thing, but to decline would be to draw suspicion on himself, so, stepping from the line, he received the straw and retired with it to my lodge.
"There was a minute of breathless suspense, when back he came and handed over his straw to me. My own straw, together with the hand which held it, I had covered with a large, spotted silk handkerchief, in such a manner that it was concealed from view, and slipping the medicine-man's straw into the same hand, I perceived at once that the thief had betrayed himself, just as I had hoped and expected he would.
"Casting a glance along the line of silent Indians, and noting that they were all attention, I withdrew the handkerchief and held up the two straws. One of them was an inch longer than the other!
"In spite of their habitual stoicism, there was a murmur and a stir along the line; but the greatest effect was naturally upon the poor medicine-man. Thrusting his hand into his bosom, he drew out the compass from under his shirt, handed it to me, and then, pulling his blanket over his head, he crept away without a word and shut himself up in his lodge."
"But how did you do it?" I interrupted. "How did his straw come out longer than the other? Did you break off a piece from your own?"
"No," replied the professor, smiling; "it was the medicine-man who broke off a piece from his. Knowing himself to be the thief, and fully believing that the straw would grow in his hand, he no sooner got into the shelter of my lodge than he bit off an inch from his straw, thus making sure, as he supposed, that its supernatural growth would bring it back to its original length. It was just what I had expected him to do. Nobody but myself, of course, could tell which straw was which, and when I held them up to view, one longer than the other, the whole assembly never doubted for an instant that the shorter one was mine and that it was the thief's straw that had grown—least of all the medicine-man, himself.
"He, poor fellow, conscious of guilt, and being himself a dealer in charms and incantations, was more than anybody in a proper frame of mind to put faith in my magic, and when he saw, as he supposed, that his straw, in spite of his precautions, had grown the promised inch, he collapsed at once; and thinking, very likely, that it was the compass itself that had betrayed him, he handed it back to me very willingly, glad to be rid of so pernicious a little imp."
"And was that the end of the matter?" I asked.
"Yes, that was the end of it. Being all ready to go, I went, leaving behind me a reputation which was to be of great service to me on many a subsequent occasion; a reputation due, I am sorry to say, very much more to the clap-trap trick played upon the poor medicine-man than upon my really meritorious service in dealing with the smallpox epidemic. My fame gradually extended among all the mountain tribes, and since then I have been free to go anywhere with the assurance not only of safety but of welcome from any of the Indians, Apache, Ute or Navajo—a condition of affairs which, as you will readily understand has been of infinite service to me during my twenty years of wandering.