"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,--
"Son of Mem Loimis, you will be a bola heris; you will be a great
gambler."
Kut was a very quick traveller, and could go in one night as far as
his brother in many nights and days. He started. There were holes in
the bottom of the basket, and as he went over the sky, high above the
top of Olelpanti Hlut, the water dropped and dropped through the holes
in the basket, and just before morning one drop fell from the basket
which Kut was carrying, and dropped into the basket which Sanihas
Yupchi had placed in the middle of the sweat-house at Olelpanti.
No one saw the water come, but in the morning the little basket was
full; the one drop filled it.
"Now," said Sanihas Yupchi, "I have worked as Hlahi all this time, and
that drop of water is all that I can get. You see it in the basket."
The little basket in Olelbis's house that the one drop filled stood
there, and Olelbis said,--
"Now you are dry, all you people in this sweat-house. You are thirsty,
you are anxious for water. Here is one drop of water. We do not know
who will drink first; but there is an old man on the west side of the
sweat-house crying all the time, crying night and day, for water. Let
him come and look at it." He meant Hubit.
Hubit stood up, came, looked at the basket and said: "What good is
this to me? There is only a drop there. It will do me no good."
"Drink what there is; you talk so much about water," replied all the
others, "that you would better drink."
"That drop can do no good to any one."
"Well, take a taste, anyhow," said Olelbis; "it will not hurt you."
"I don't want a taste, I want a drink," answered Hubit.
"Take a drink, then," said Olelbis.
Hubit began to drink. He drank and drank, took his belt off about the
middle of the forenoon, put his head on the edge of the basket and
drank from morning till midday, drank till two men had to carry him
away from the water and lay him down at the upper end of the
sweat-house.
Though Hubit drank half a day, the water in the basket was no less.
Kiriu Herit drank next. He drank long, but did not lower the water.
After him Sutunut drank till he was satisfied; then Moihas drank all
he wanted.
"Let all come and drink. When each has enough, let him stand aside,"
said Olelbis.
Tsararok drank, and then Kuntihle drank; then Hus and Tsurat; after
them the old women, Pakchuso Pokaila, the grandmothers of Olelbis,
drank; then Toko; then Kopus drank. But the people murmured, saying,--
"Kopus is no Hlahi; he ought not to have any of our water. He is only
good for acorns."
The two Tsudi girls, who had sung so long, drank very heartily.
Lutchi lived outside, east of the sweat-house; they called him to
drink. He took one sip and went out. Lutchi never liked water.
Now Sanihas Yupchi, who had brought the water, drank of it; and last
of all, Olelbis.
When all were satisfied, and Toko had gone back and lain down in his
place north of the sweat-house, the basket was put near him; and ever
after Toko had water in abundance, and so had every one.
There was plenty of water ever after in Olelpanti for all uses; but if
Sanihas Yupchi had not brought it, all might have perished for want of
water.
"I will go home now," said Sanihas Yupchi, after he had drunk. He
wished well to every one and went away.
When Kut was carrying the basket westward, every drop that fell made a
spring,--wherever a drop fell a spring appeared.