Young Hitchinna could not sleep, he was frightened. When Haka Lasi was asleep, he rose very quickly, took a piece of soft rotten wood, put it on her arm where she had held his head, covered it, and then ran away quickly, hurried back toward Juka’s sweat-house with all his might. About daylight he was at the sweat-house.
Now Chuhna, Juka’s sister, lived with him. She was the greatest person in the world to spin threads and twist ropes. She had a willow basket as big as a house, and a rope which reached up to the sky and was fastened there.
“My nephew,” said she to Hitchinna, “I will save you and save all from your terrible sister. She will be here very soon; she may come any moment. She will kill all in this house; she will kill every one if she finds us here. Let all go into my basket. I will take you up to the sky. She cannot find us there; she cannot follow us to that place.”
“I will lie lowest,” said Metsi. “I am a good man, I will go in first, I will go in before others; I will be at the bottom of the basket.”
Metsi went in first; every one in the sweat-house followed him. Then Chuhna ran up, rose on her rope, and pulled the basket after her.
The sweat-house was empty; no one stayed behind. Chuhna kept rising and rising, going higher and higher.
When Haka Lasi woke up and saw that she had a block of rotten wood on her arm instead of Hitchinna, she said,—
“You won’t get away from me, I will catch you wherever you are.”
She rushed back to the sweat-house. It was empty; no one there. She ran around in every direction looking for tracks, to find which way they had gone. She found nothing on the ground; then she looked into the sky, and far up, very high, close to the sun, she saw the basket rising, going up steadily.
Haka Lasi was raging; she was so awfully angry that she set fire to the house. It burned quickly, was soon a heap of coals.