The boys wished very much to build a hut. But as it was summer-time, they thought they had better try to build a summer hut. Besides, it would have been too big a piece of work to dig down four or five feet into the ground. They were a long time before they could find a place for their hut, because, as they said, they must pretend that it was not one hut that they were going to build, but a whole village of huts. They talked over with Uncle John the things that the people had in mind when choosing a site for a village. They decided that, no doubt, it must be on high ground, with a clear view of the country round about on every side, so that the dwellers in the village could see if their enemies were coming to attack them. Then they would be better able to defend themselves if they stood above their enemies, than if their enemies stood above them. There was another reason for having the village up on the hill rather than down in the valley, and it was this. The valleys were thick with forests, in which were bears and wolves, so they were dangerous for men and cattle. But on the open hill-sides the cattle could be driven out to feed every day in safety; and if wolves came out of the forest, the men could see them in the open and keep them in check. Joe said they must have water for the village, so they must be sure of being close to a stream or a spring. Uncle John said that water was very necessary, of course; but that if you went to live on the top of a hill for safety you could not expect to have water in abundance, for there are no streams about the tops of hills, and not often springs. However, he said, the people managed to overcome this difficulty, as the book would tell. David wanted to know about firewood; wouldn’t they need to be near the forest for that? They certainly would want firewood, Uncle John said, and they must always depend on having to make many journeys to the forest to get wood. But the ground must be cleared and kept open round about the village, so that there might be pasture for the cattle and ground for growing corn and other crops. At last the boys found a very good place. It was high up, beyond a grove of oak trees, and there was a little spring close by: they called the grove of oak trees the forest. They had not very good tools to work with. David had a big clasp-knife with a spring at the back, to prevent it shutting up on his hand, and Joe had a little hatchet that was not very sharp. But Dick wrote to his mother in London, and his father sent him a little axe like an Indian’s tomahawk. It took them three days to build the hut. Although the trees were Uncle John’s, he could not let them cut down branches. But he let the woodman bring them some cut boughs from the wood-yard.