Through all this the Apache scouts trudged without a complaint, and with many a laugh and jest. Each time camp was reached they showed themselves masters of the situation. They would gather the saponaceous roots of the yucca and Spanish bayonet, to make use of them in cleaning their long, black hair, or cut sections of the bamboo-like cane and make pipes for smoking, or four-holed flutes, which emitted a weird, Chinese sort of music, responded to with melodious chatter by countless birds perched in the shady seclusion of ash and cotton-wood. Those scouts who were not on watch gave themselves up to the luxury of the tá-a-chi, or sweat-bath. To construct these baths, a dozen willow or cotton-wood branches are stuck in the ground and the upper extremities, united to form a dome-shaped frame-work, upon which are laid blankets to prevent the escape of heat. Three or four large rocks are heated and placed in the centre, the Indians arranging themselves around these rocks and bending over them. Silicious bowlders are invariably selected, and not calcareous--the Apaches being sufficiently familiar with rudimentary mineralogy to know that the latter will frequently crack and explode under intense heat. When it came to my time to enter the sweat-lodge I could see nothing but a network of arms and legs, packed like sardines. An extended experience with Broadway omnibuses assured me that there must always be room for one more. The smile of the “medicine-man”--the master of ceremonies--encouraged me to push in first an arm, then a leg, and, finally, my whole body. Thump! sounded the damp blanket as it fell against the frame-work and shut out all light and air. The conductor of affairs inside threw a handful of water on the hot rocks, and steam, on the instant, filled every crevice of the den. The heat was that of a bake-oven; breathing was well-nigh impossible. “Sing,” said in English the Apache boy, “Keet,” whose legs and arms were sinuously intertwined with mine; “sing heap; sleep moocho to-night; eat plenny dinna to-mollo.” The other bathers said that everybody must sing. I had to yield. My _repertoire_ consists of but one song--the lovely ditty--“Our captain’s name is Murphy.” I gave them this with all the lung-power I had left, and was heartily encored; but I was too much exhausted to respond, and rushed out, dripping with perspiration, to plunge with my dusky comrades into the refreshing waters of the Bávispe, which had worn out for themselves tanks three to twenty feet deep. The effects of the bath were all that the Apaches had predicted--a sound, refreshing sleep and increased appetite. [Illustration: APACHE HEAD-DRESSES, SHOES, TOYS, ETC.]