A Siwash Indian, who happened to be at Copper Center, but whose home1 was forty miles down the river, asked the privilege of accompanying us as far as his home; and we were more than glad to grant his request, as the stream was practically unknown to us, while every kink and curve and snag was familiar to him.

About four o'clock in the afternoon we pushed out into the swift current of the river, and were borne rapidly down stream. The day was bright and beautiful, and we looked forward to a pleasant trip, expecting that four days would take us to Orca, where we were to take a ship to Seattle. We had provided ourselves with eight days' rations, allowing for four days of unexpected delay.

When about ten miles down, just as the shades of evening were settling over mountain and stream, we came to an Indian's house, and our Indian pilot informed us that this was a good place to camp for the night. So we ran into a little cove, landed, built our camp fire, and prepared supper.

Several Indian women and children came down, and eagerly watched the food as it was being prepared. We judged that they were hungry, and gave them some, which they ate ravenously; then they returned to their house, and sent a new delegation down after more food. These did not fare so well.

Just as we were finishing our supper a young Indian lad about fourteen years old came up from the river banks to the fire, his clothing dripping with water, and with a broad grin on his countenance gave us to understand that he had just come down the river from Copper Center on a stick canoe (raft) to see his dutchman (girl). We examined his raft. It was made of two sticks seven inches in diameter and seven feet long, tied together, and upon this, with his feet hanging in the water, and the thermometer at zero, he had ridden ten miles down the swift Copper River this dark night just to see his girl.

I wondered how often the young men of the States would go to see their best girls, if it had to be done under such difficulties, and with such a conveyance. I wondered, too, how they would be received if they walked into the presence of their lady love looking as much like a drowned rat as did this young Indian. But love is love, whether in the breast of an uncultured savage or a white aristocrat.

After supper we went to return the calls of our dusky visitors. The outside door of the house we found not over three feet in height, and only eighteen inches wide. We did not ring the doorbell, nor did we rap, for a buckskin latch-string was hanging outside, which we gave a vigorous pull, and immediately the door opened. We got down upon all fours, and crawled inside.

The house was built of logs, one story high, and about eighteen by twenty feet in size. It had no windows, light coming from an opening in the center of the roof about six feet square. Upon each side, and running the entire length, was an elevation-a Yankee would call it a wide shelf-about four feet from the ground and about the same in width, and upon these the member of the household, as well as their company, sit, and here we found the occupants now.

The members of the household, in this instance, were fifteen in number, ranging from the gray-haired grandsire of seventy or more to a wee baby of perhaps a month old. This baby was placed in a little wooden tray just the length of its body, and over it was another similar to it, except that this was cut off just below or at the neck. These were strapped together, and hung up in the center of the room from overhead, and kept swinging by any one of their number who moved about the room.

Their sleeping apartment was a long, narrow wing built upon one side of the main house, and entered from it by a door similar to the other, low and narrow. Their beds were of blankets and the skins of wild animals, arranged in a row upon the ground. In this one room the entire household sleep, no matter how large.

At the rear end of the house was a small door, also, leading into a cave, which is used by the Indians as a bathroom, and in this little underground room they take a sweat bath every day. They build a fire around large stones, heating them very hot. When sufficiently heated, two Indians generally enter, and take their baths together. Pouring water on the stones, a steam arises, which very soon starts a copious sweating, when they begin to switch each other with small switches made of a handful of small boughs of some tree, until the bath is considered finished. This usually lasts about fifteen minutes, and until perspiration is coming from every pore. They then come from their bathroom, rush down to the banks of the Copper River, stop a moment to cross themselves, and take a headlong plunge into its cold waves. After a moment or two of this cold plunge bath, they come out, and often sit on a log, or stand and talk for ten or fifteen minutes, before returning for their clothes. When we were there they stood entirely naked, and talked fully ten minutes, when the weather was so cold that we wore our overcoats, and were cold at that. And this we were told was their daily practice.

It was a mystery to me how those people could come out of that hot place steaming like a locomotive, and while the mercury was at zero or below, go down and plunge into the icy water; and after such a plunge, come out, and sit or stand for so many minutes without a shiver or twinge of muscle. . . (Chapter 25, pp. 137-144).