Ha-na-ha! ha-na-ha! a-hah-hua! O, grandmother! Where am I straying So far from my country and people? All speeches I know, of my sitting In councils of men and the beings, Since first in the depths they had being! But of far ways, alas! I am kenless! Ha-na-ha! ha-na-ha! a-hah-hua! The mountains are white, and the valleys; All plains are like others in whiteness; And even the light of our father The Sun, as he rises and passes, Makes all ways more hidden of whiteness! For in brightness my eyes see but darkness-- And in darkness all ways are bewildered! Ha-na-ha! ha-na-ha! a-hah-hua! In the winds, lo! I hear the directions; But the winds speak the ways of all regions, Of the north and the west and the southward, Of the east and of upward and downward, They tell not the way to the Middle! They tell not the way to my people! Ha-na-ha! ha-na-ha! a-hah-hua! "Hold, my child, my father," said the Duck. "Think no longer sad thoughts. Though thou be blind, yet thou _hearest_ all as I _see_ all. Give me, therefore, tinkling shells from thy girdle and place them on my neck and in my beak. Thus may I guide thee with my seeing if so be thou by thy hearing grasp and hold firmly my trail. For look, now! Thy country and the way thither well I know, for I go that way each year leading the wild goose and the crane, who flee thither as winter follows." And so the K‘yäk´lu placed his talking shells on the neck of the Duck, and in her beak placed the singing shells, which ever in his speakings and listenings K‘yäk´lu had been wont to wear at his girdle; and albeit painfully and lamely, yet he did follow the sound she made with these shells, perching lightly on his searching outstretched hand, and did all too slowly follow her swift flight from place to place wherein she, anon, going forth would await him and urge him, ducking her head that the shells might call loudly, and dipping her beak that they might summon his ears as the hand summons the eyes. By and by they came to the country of thick rains and mists on the borders of the Snow World, and passed from water to water, until at last, lo! wider waters lay in their way. In vain the Duck called and jingled her shells from over the midst of them, K‘yäk´lu could not follow. All maimed was he; nor could he swim or fly as could the Duck. HOW THE RAINBOW-WORM BORE K‘YÄK´LU TO THE PLAIN OF K´‘HLUËLANE. Now the Rainbow-worm was near, in that land of mists and waters. And when he heard the sacred sounds of the shells he listened. "Ha! these be my grandchildren, and precious be they, for they call one to the other with shells of the great world-encircling waters," said he; and so, with one measure of his length, he placed himself nigh them, saying--