She held a basket to her breast then and took water from it, as a nursing mother would take milk, filled the basket, and gave it to the boys. She gave them plenty to eat, too, and said,—
“You boys are all my children. You are sons of Mem Loimis. I am here now; but if there should be disturbance, if trouble were to rise, my husband Kahit would come and take me away. He told me so. Some day my husband Olelbis will know his son in the north who is living with Kahit. Some day my husband Olelbis will think of me; he may want me to come to him, he may wish to see me.”
Wokwuk and Kut stayed five days with their mother, then one day, and after that one day more. Sanihas Yupchi, who was dancing and chanting in Olelpanti continually, said after the boys had gone:
“Get me a suhi kilo” (a striped basket).
Olelbis got him the suhi kilo, a little basket about two inches around, and very small inside. Sanihas Yupchi put it in the middle of the sweat-house. Nine days more passed, and Sanihas Yupchi was dancing all the time.
That morning Mem Loimis said to Kut, the youngest son of Olelbis,—
“Your uncle Mem Hui, an old man, who lives at the first horizon west of Olelpanti, is dry. He is thirsting for water. Take water to him. Your elder brother will stay here with me while you are gone.”
Sanihas Yupchi had danced fifty-nine days. On the sixtieth evening Mem Loimis gave Kut a basketful of water for his uncle in the west.
“Go,” said she, “straight west to where the old man lives. When you have reached Mem Hui with the water, I will go and see my son Sotchet in the north. I hear him cry all the time. He is dry. I will carry him water.”
She gave Kut, in a net bag before he started, ten gambling sticks cut from grapevine. She tied the bag around his neck, and said,—