floor was so smooth and shiny, and the bedsteads, each one shut off by
a curtain and made pretty with fringe and pictures, seemed almost like
tiny sleeping rooms. Moreover, the banking of earth over the framework
of the lodge kept out the chill winds and biting cold of winter.

But here, in The Stoned tepee, where the skin covering was old and
torn, one must often suffer. At least so thought Timid Hare as she
looked up now and then from her work to get acquainted with her new
home.

"Besides, it is so small," she said to herself, "and only two people in
the whole household before I came. How strange it is!"

It was quite true that the ways of the Dahcotas were unlike those of
the Mandans. Each family lived by itself and thus the home did not
need to be so large. Timid Hare did not know this, nor that the
people, as a rule, lived in great comfort. They preferred tents,
rather than houses like those of the Mandans, of frame-work covered
with earth because they liked to move from place to place and they
could thus carry their homes with them. Yet their tepees were warm and
comfortable because the covering of strong, thick buffalo skins was
generally double. Fires were kept burning on their hearths in winter
and supplies of food and clothing were easy to obtain from the wild
creatures of the woods and prairies. What more could any red people
wish?

Timid Hare had heard her foster father tell much of the powerful
Dahcotas and that they were rich, as Indians count riches.

"Why are they so powerful?" she now asked herself. "Ugh! it was