Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/199

IBS' THE PADpUCAS BECOME EXTINCT. during the first quarter of the ISfch century little is known. Whether the tribe toward the east united with the Pawnees for their destruction, or whether disease did its fatal work among them, is only a mat- ter of conjecture. As a nation they long ago disap- peared, and the roving band of Kiowas and Kaskaias, whose language there is no similarity to the Dahco- tah, and who, from their haunts in the Black HULs, long came down to hunt in the region where the Pa- doucas formerly lived, are supposed to be the last lemnants of the great nation of the Padoucas." .^ At the date of our story the Padoucas dia not dare to show themselves among the Quivirians, for had they done so, they would surely have met death, so bitter was the feud between them. You vrill note what history says as to the manner of this mysterious people having their town laid out systematically, but this cannot be said of the village on the Kansas river near Manhattan where our party is now stopping, for Oastaneda described their houses to be "round with- out a wall, and they have one story like a loft, under the roof, where they sleep and keep their belongings. The roofs are of straw. " It was the hottest monthin the year when the party was in this country, and by reason thereof it is nut unlikely that the natives had taken -down their wall so as to permit the beautiful Kansas breeze to pass through Aheir shelter, and these walls without doubt were constructed from the skins of the buffalo, which were easily adjusted aq- cording to the season, and the roof instead of straw was long bluestem grass, that grows as high as eight and averaging four feet and makes excellent thatching.