Taffy drew the snake and the drying-pole. Then she stopped. 'We must make a new picture for that end sound, mustn't we?' '_Shu-shu-u-u-u!_' said her Daddy. 'Why, it's just like the round-egg-sound made thin.' 'Then s'pose we draw a thin round egg, and pretend it's a frog that hasn't eaten anything for years.' 'N-no,' said her Daddy. 'If we drew that in a hurry we might mistake it for the round egg itself. _Shu-shu-shu!_ _I'll_ tell you what we'll do. We'll open a little hole at the end of the round egg to show how the O-noise runs out all thin, _ooo-oo-oo_. Like this.' And he drew this. (12.) [Illustration: 12] 'Oh, that's lovely! Much better than a thin frog. Go on,' said Taffy, using her shark's tooth. Her Daddy went on drawing, and his hand shook with excitement. He went on till he had drawn this. (13.) [Illustration: 13] 'Don't look up, Taffy,' he said. 'Try if you can make out what that means in the Tegumai language. If you can, we've found the Secret.' 'Snake--pole--broken-egg--carp-tail and carp-mouth,' said Taffy. '_Shu-ya._ Sky-water (rain).' Just then a drop fell on her hand, for the day had clouded over. 'Why, Daddy, it's raining. Was _that_ what you meant to tell me?' 'Of course,' said her Daddy. 'And I told it you without saying a word, didn't I?' 'Well, I _think_ I would have known it in a minute, but that raindrop made me quite sure. I'll always remember now. _Shu-ya_ means rain or "it is going to rain." Why, Daddy!' She got up and danced round him. 'S'pose you went out before I was awake, and drawed _shu-ya_ in the smoke on the wall, I'd know it was going to rain and I'd take my beaver-skin hood. Wouldn't Mummy be surprised!' Tegumai got up and danced. (Daddies didn't mind doing those things in those days.) 'More than that! More than that!' he said. 'S'pose I wanted to tell you it wasn't going to rain much and you must come down to the river, what would we draw? Say the words in Tegumai-talk first.' '_Shu-ya-las, ya maru._ (Sky-water ending. River come to.) _What_ a lot of new sounds! _I_ don't see how we can draw them.' 'But I do--but I do!' said Tegumai. 'Just attend a minute, Taffy, and we won't do any more to-day. We've got _shu-ya_ all right, haven't we? but this _las_ is a teaser. _La-la-la!'_ and he waved his shark-tooth. 'There's the hissy-snake at the end and the carp-mouth before the snake--_as-as-as_. We only want _la-la_,' said Taffy. 'I know it, but we have to make la-la. And we're the first people in all the world who've ever tried to do it, Taffimai!' 'Well,' said Taffy, yawning, for she was rather tired. '_Las_ means breaking or finishing as well as ending, doesn't it?' 'So it does,' said Tegumai. '_Yo-las_ means that there's no water in the tank for Mummy to cook with--just when I'm going hunting, too.' 'And _shi-las_ means that your spear is broken. If I'd only thought of _that_ instead of drawing silly beaver pictures for the Stranger!'