The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

And while the crowd cackled and gibbered in glee, Grumgra scornfully announced: "I have found out all that the Sparrow-Hearted has done. He made wicked magic last night. He does not fight before our eyes like other men—he runs away, and then works his evil like a crawling serpent behind our backs. While we were all asleep, he spoke with the wind-god and the gods of the clouds, and told them to put out the fire-god. Also, he called to the bad spirits of the woods, and told them to catch and eat our people. This the bad spirits did—and for this Ru must suffer!"

Here Grumgra paused again, while breathlessly the people awaited the sentence he was to pronounce, and Ru, heavily panting and more than half exhausted, still strained uselessly in the arms of his persecutors.

"If it were anyone but the Sparrow-Hearted," Grumgra resumed, tapping his club significantly, "I would have him slain—no, I would slay him with my own hands! But who wants to wring the neck of a sparrow? And so I will not kill him this time—"

Murmurs of disappointment were beginning to be heard from several quarters; but Grumgra, with a ferocious frown, hastened to reassure his people.

"I do not mean that we shall not punish him. I shall not hit him with my club, for do we not need all our men to help us in the hunt?—but until he lies down for his last sleep he shall bear the marks of his bad deeds. He has put out the fire-god by making the rain come—and so the fire-god must take vengeance. Go, my people, gather new fagots and light the fires again; then let us scorch black marks upon the Sparrow-Hearted's throat, that all men may see and know of his shame!"

Delighted titters expressed the approval of the audience; and at the same time a growl half of rage and half of agony issued from the throat of Ru. But a huge mud-caked hand, thrust savagely across his mouth, stifled his protest in mid-career; and while he squirmed and struggled ineffectively in the arms of his captors, he could see several of his tribesmen darting about with great zest to gather fagots and flints.

But it proved to be no easy matter to make a fire—the wood was wet, and would not burn. And while the delay prolonged Ru's torments, it gave him a vague hope and a bitter satisfaction to watch his fellows sweat and toil to no avail, pounding the flints furiously together and kindling spark after spark that invariably vanished in thin air. Hours went by, and no fire was made; by degrees his persecutors wearied of holding him, and their oaths became terrible to hear; while the dismayed people began to murmur that Ru had bewitched the fire-god.

As time wore on, it became apparent that the migration could not be resumed before the following morning—the punishment of Ru had cost an entire day. But Grumgra seemed determined that, regardless of the waste of time, Ru should be punished; and as he strode pugnaciously from group to group, swinging his club and snarling at the unsuccessful fire-makers, it seemed likely that if Ru did not suffer someone else would. Once, indeed, the chieftain went so far as to lunge viciously at the skull of a particularly careless handler of the flints; and, after the intended victim had escaped by the fraction of an inch, his fellow workers applied themselves scrupulously, but none the less with one eye furtively upon Grumgra.

Time was to lend their labors success. The sun had come out somewhat hesitatingly that morning; but though he worked slowly he worked surely; and after a few hours, some of the fagots had become reasonably dry. Thus it happened that, when the afternoon was already old, the people saw the bright flames once more leaping and crackling in the center of their encampment.

And now came the eagerly awaited event. With the excitement of spectators at some rare entertainment, the tribespeople gathered to see the punishment of Ru. All eyes gleamed and glittered in greedy pleasure, and all lips uttered exclamations of joy, when at length the culprit was dragged and shoved toward the flames. Despite his small physique and the strain and exhaustion of the last few hours, Ru was fighting like a wildcat. Some new and almost superhuman strength seemed to have come into him, now that the fires flashed so near; four of his larger kinsmen were needed to hold that furiously writhing, squirming little form; and the blackening eyes of two of the men showed the marks of his outthrust fists and feet, while on the arm of another was a gaping red gash where the captive's teeth had wrought angry vengeance.