But besides their dwelling-places, the people had a fort, which was meant to be used only in time of war for the tribe to retire to, if their enemies should attack them. It was built at the top of a high hill, in the form of a ring, with a mound of earth and stones, and a stockade all round, and a deep ditch outside. The fort was big enough to take in all the people and their cattle in case of necessity; but when Tig was a baby, it had not been used for a long time and nobody lived in it. [Illustration] _Chapter the Third_ _Tig’s Mother, and the Lessons that she taught him_ TIG’S mother was called Gofa. She was the mistress of the house and the housekeeper. She did not keep any servants, but did the work herself; she minded Tig and his little brothers and sisters, and cooked their meals and made clothes for Garff and all the family. Their clothes were mostly made of skins, and Gofa always prepared the skins for the clothes with her own hands. To make a suit out of a deerskin was a long business. The hide had to be dried in the open air, and then scraped all over with flint scrapers until all the hair was taken off. Then it was smeared with the animal’s brains and fat, and allowed to dry again; and then thoroughly washed in wooden tubs and tanned with the bark of oak-trees. When at last it was cured and dried, it was cut into pieces and the pieces sewn together with sinews. Gofa’s needles were made of bone, and they were not very sharp: she used to pierce holes in the leather with a little bodkin made of flint stone before she could put in the stitches. But once the stitches were made, they held firmer than any that are sewn with thread. Whenever a deer was brought home or a cow killed, Gofa always kept the big sinews from the legs and dried them in the sun or under the roof of the hut indoors. Then she took a flint knife and scraped the sinew and shredded it into threads, and drew the threads separately through her fingers, and put them away in a pouch made of deer-skin. This was her store of thread. [Illustration: Dressing a Skin] The suit that most people wore was a sark; it was a sort of shirt which came down to the knees, and was girded with a belt at the waist. This was generally made of dressed hide; but almost every one had besides a thicker dress for cold weather, with the hair left on; and the richer people had these trimmed with different sorts of fur. Some wore cloaks besides, and caps made of skin with the hair on. When the men went hunting they wore shoes made of hide, and leather bands wrapped round their legs for leggings. The people let their hair grow long; and they often used to spend much time combing and dressing it.