Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/121

 each family has thirty or forty, pretended to make a show of fierceness, but on the least threat, ran off. They are of different sizes and colors. A number are fattened on purpose to eat, others are used for drawing their baggage. It is nothing more than the domesticated wolf. In wandering through the prairies, I have often mistaken wolves for Indian dogs. The larger kind has long curly hair, and resembles the shepherd dog. There is the same diversity amongst the wolves of this country. {142} They may be more properly said to howl, than bark.

The lodges are constructed in the following manner: Four large forks of about fifteen feet in height, are placed in the ground, usually about twenty feet from each other, with hewn logs or beams across; from these beams other pieces are placed above, leaving an aperture at the top to admit the light, and to give vent to the smoke. These upright pieces are interwoven with osiers, after which the whole is covered with earth, though not sodded. An opening is left at one side for a door, which is secured by a kind of projection of ten or twelve feet, enclosed on all sides, and forming a narrow entrance, which might be easily defended. A buffaloe robe suspended at the entrance, answers as a door. The fire is made in a hole in the ground, directly under the aperture at the top. Their beds elevated a few feet, are placed around the lodge, and enclosed with curtains of dressed elk skins. At the upper end of the lodge, there is a kind of trophy erected; two buffaloe heads, fantastically painted, are placed on a little elevation; over them, are fixed a variety of consecrated things, such as shields, {143} skins of a rare or valuable kind, and quivers of arrows. The lodges are placed at random, without any regularity or design, and are so much alike, that it was for some time before I could learn to return to the same one. The village is surrounded by a palisade of cedar poles, but