Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/222

 t stood on

a hillside, a little above the prairie, facing the sun, close to the warm springs, and on the very head of the Numken, and was not unlike an ordinary miner s cabin, except that the fireplace was in the centre of the room instead of being awkwardly placed at one end, where but few can get the benefit of the fire. This departure was not without reason.

In the first place, the two Indians, constituting nearly half of the voting population of our little colony, insisted on it with a zeal that was certainly com mendable ; and as they insisted on nothing else, it was only justice to listen to them in this.

u By-and-by my people will come," said Paquita, u and then you will want an Indian fire, a fire that they can sit down by and around without sending somebody back in the cold."

Again, you cannot build a cabin so strong with one end devoted to a chimney, as if it is one solid square body of logs. Then, it is no small task to build a chimney out of stone with only your hands for a trowel and black mud for mortar.

All these things considered, we placed the fire in the centre of the cabin on the earth-floor, and let the smoke curl up and out through an opening in the roof, as it always does and always will, in a graceful sort of way, if you build a fire as an Indian builds it.

The Doctor was getting strong again. As this man grew strong in a measure, it is a little re markable that my sympathies were withdrawn propor-