THE LOST WOMAN OF SAN NICOLAS 315 



became lost in reality. The story became a legend. 

 The woman at first must have been nearly crazed at 

 being deserted. After this came a revulsion of feeling, 

 and she must have avoided the otter-hunters who went 

 there, an easy matter to do on an island so large as 

 San Nicolas. Some one must have seen the woman, 

 or her house, as some time in 1850, or thereabouts. 

 Padre Gonzales of the Mission of Santa Barbara 

 requested Captain Nidever to go to the island and 

 search for the woman. 



Captain Nidever made three trips and searched the 

 island from end to end, but failed to find the woman. 

 On the third trip, still urged by the good padre, he 

 took several Santa Barbarefios, a number of Indians, 

 and Mr. Charles Brown, or Carl Ditman, as he was also 

 known. Some years ago Mr. D. W. Thompson, of 

 Santa Barbara, wishing to obtain the exact facts in 

 the case, visited Brown, then a very old man, with a 

 stenographer and took down his statement. 



Captain Nidever was positive that the woman was 

 eluding them; so on the third trip he started at the 

 southeast end, at the spit, and arranged his men in a 

 line, several hundred feet apart, but all in speaking 

 distance, and at the word of command they marched 

 slowly forward scrutinizing every foot of the island, 

 with the result that they suddenly came upon the hut 

 of the woman. The statement of Brown is as follows: 



"I went round the head of the island and found traces of 

 the woman; went back and told the old gentleman that the 

 woman was alive. He said it must be some of our Indians. I 

 said, 'Our Indians have got bigger tracks that that.' He said, 

 ' Well, if you think she is alive, let us hunt for her, and take all 

 the men ashore.' We went up to the head of the island. There 



