hily procure a delicious morsel. As
yet he had distinguished no other sign of life or habitation; a
few moments later, however, and grown bolder with an animal-like
trustfulness in his momentary security, he crept out of the thicket and
found himself near a long, low mound or burrow-like structure of mud and
bark on the river-bank. A single narrow opening, not unlike the entrance
of an Esquimau hut, gave upon the river. Martin had no difficulty in
recognizing the character of the building. It was a "sweathouse," an
institution common to nearly all the aboriginal tribes of California.
Half a religious temple, it was also half a sanitary asylum, was used as
a Russian bath or superheated vault, from which the braves, sweltering
and stifling all night, by smothered fires, at early dawn plunged,
perspiring, into the ice-cold river. The heat and smoke were further
utilized to dry and cure the long strips of fish hanging from the roof,
and it was through the narrow aperture that served as a chimney that the
odor escaped which Martin had detected. He knew that as the bathers
only occupied the house from midnight to early morn, it was now probably
empty. He advanced confidently toward it.

He was a little surprised to find that the small open space between it
and the river was occupied by a rude scaffolding, like that on which
certain tribes exposed their dead, but in this instance it only
contained the feathered leggings, fringed blanket, and eagle-plumed
head-dress of some brave. He did not, however, linger in this plainly
visible area, but quickly dropped on all fours and crept into the
interior of the house. Here he completed his feast with the fish, and
warmed his chilled limbs on the embers of the still smouldering fires.
It was while drying his tattered clothes and shoeless feet that he
thought of the dead brave's useless leggings and moccasins, and it
occurred to him that he would be less likely to attract the Indians'
attention from a distance and provoke a ready arrow, if he were
disguised as one of them. Crawling out again, he quickly secured, not
only the leggings, but the blanket and head-dress, and putting them on,
cast his own clothes into the stream. A bolder, more energetic, or more
provident man would have followed the act by quickly making his way
back to the thicket to reconnoitre, taking with him a supply of fish for
future needs. But Elijah Martin succumbed again to the recklessness
of inertia; he yielded o