Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/146

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The Boy Scouts of the Air

fire below can get out. Every house has two doors—one in front and one in the rear. The doors are never bolted, but simply hung with mats, which are raised or dropped at pleasure. The houses are usually built under great trees to protect them from the winter winds and the summer sun. They have no windows. All the light comes through the doors or the smoke vent. The Indians eat, sleep and cook all in one room.

"'Their beds are made of short posts driven in the ground around the sides of the wigwam, a foot high, with poles laid along and reeds cast across them. They sleep on a mat which they roll up on arising.

"'In March and April, they net fish and hunt turkeys and squirrels, and in May they plant out their corn. In the hunting season, they leave their houses, gather together in companies, and with their families, go to the most deserted places up near the mountains where there is plenty of game. The huts in which they live during this hunting season are flimsy cabins, with mats thrown over them. These mats the squaws carry when a move is made. They like-