the highest peak, suffusing the black aisles of
the forest with a rosy glow, reddening the snow on hut and level and
rocky heights. There was not a sound except the faint murmur of the
treetops.

"Where is the world?" asked Roldan. "Are there ranches, with cavalcades
and bull-fights, lazy caballeros lying in hammocks smoking cigarritos,
or dancing the night through with silly girls? Dios de mi alma! I feel
as if I did not care."

"Caramba!" exclaimed Adan, "I am famished. Do you suppose they have
left us anything to eat?"

"I suppose there is nothing to do but ask one of these dogs to be good
enough to give us breakfast--no, not ask. I could starve, but not beg
of an Indian."

He beckoned haughtily to one of the sentinels, who approached and
saluted respectfully.

"Breakfast," said the young don, curtly. "We wish to eat at once."

The Indian went over to a large stone oven and took out four meal
cakes, which he carried to the boys, then fetched them fruit and wine.

"Where is Anastacio and the others?" asked Roldan, breakfast over.

"In the temascal."

Roldan sprang to his feet. "Do you hear that, Adan?" he cried. "We have
always wanted to see Indians in temascal." To the sentinel, "Take us
there at once."

The Indian scowled. "But for you, senor, we, too, are in the temascal."

"Take us to the temascal," said Roldan, peremptorily, and the savage,
in whom servility had been planted by civilisation, yielded to the will
of the aristocrat. He bent his shoulders and said: "Bueno; come!"

The boys followed him through the brush, the sweet-scented chaparral on
which the honey-dew still lingered, to another and smaller clearing.
Here were several long rows of earthen huts, three or four feet high,
out of which smoke poured through an aperture in the roof of each. Near
by was a broad creek to which the bank sloped gently from the clearing.
The creek, some three feet deep, murmured over coloured stones and
sprouting trees. The long fine strands of the ice grass trailed far
over the water, motionless. Huge bunches of maidenhair, delicate as
green lace, clung to the steep bluffs on the opposite side. Forests of
ferns grew close to the water's edge. Down through a rift in the cliffs
tumbled a mountain stream over its rocky bed.

"Are they stewing in those things?" asked Roldan.

The Indian nodded. Roldan, followed closely by Adan, approached one of
the temascals and opened the door cautiously. At first they could