Half asleep on his reindeer skin beside his grandfather, Thorn saw the
old yellow moon go down. Around him he heard the noises of the great
forest. Katydids and locusts and tree toads were singing, and from far
away came the long howls of wolves. From a branch overhead a great
snowy owl kept calling to his mate. That was the last the boy knew
till the sun lighted up the tree tops.

The next evening it rained. The women quickly bent little trees over
and tied their tops together and threw skins over them. Then they sat
on the ground under the shelters and laughed and talked and watched the
rain. Some of the women made baskets.

[Illustration: Snowy owl in tree]

One woman had an elm branch. She broke off the rough outside bark to
get the soft inside bark. This she pulled off in strips and twisted
together into long strings. Then she broke little branches from the
tree bending over her, and tied them together at one end. With two
pieces of string, she wove under and over a stick and crossed the
strings. In this way she wove around and around the basket to the top,
and tied a stick for a handle.

[Illustration: Women with baskets]

"I will place leaves in it, and then it will hold berries," she said.

One woman was making a bag of a bit of skin. She made holes near the
edge of the skin and put a string through them and pulled them
together. Another woman made a basket of birch bark in the same way.