The man who spoke and the dancers were Hinwa people. Sedit rushed on, came to a flat, saw a spring, and many persons drinking water.
"My grandsons, what are you doing, why do you drink so much water? Water is bad for young people" (these people were birds of all sorts). Sedit called the place Chilchil balus (bird drinking). He went on without stopping or talking,--had no time for either. He listened, heard the singing near a hill, ran there; heard talking of many people, the Tsurats arguing about acorns.
Sedit passed these people, crossed the Norken Mem, ran along the trail, came to an old man lying across it at the foot of a mountain. Sedit, going fast, thought to jump over the old man, but he moved, and Sedit stopped. "Grandson, what are you doing?" asked Sedit. This was Pom Piweki. "I cannot tell what to do," said Pom. "I am old, I cannot travel; so I lay down here."
"I will go on," said Sedit, "and come back this way, I think." He heard the song nearer now; followed it, followed till sunset, when it ceased. He stayed all night in that place.
Next morning, some time after sunrise, the song began again. Sedit answered, and followed it. Then it ceased; he stopped again; then the song began a second time; he followed; the song ceased. The song circled around the mountain, going a little higher gradually; sometimes it was near, sometimes it seemed far away, but he never came up to it.
After wandering ten days, perhaps, he reached the top of the mountain by going round and round the side of it. The singing was in the mountain now all the time. He was on the highest part of Kele's sweat-house. Kele, his twenty sons, and two daughters were inside, and the girls and old man knew that some one was walking on the roof of their sweat-house. Kele's sons went out each morning, and so did his daughters. Although they were many, Sedit never saw one of them,--they fooled him. At last, when Sedit was on the mountain, Kele shouted,--
"If any one is on my house, let him go down to the western door of it."
Sedit heard, and went back the way by which he came. He went to Pom Piweki and asked: "Do you know where the door to this sweat-house is?"
Pom Piweki made no answer. He stood up and pulled open a door; it seemed as though he had been lying across the entrance. When he opened the door, Sedit saw far into the house.