How different--how very different--this home was from the one among the Mandans! The old one was so big and comfortable, and there was such a jolly household of parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts, and children of all ages gathered together under one roof. Then, too, the floor was so smooth and shiny, and the bedsteads, each one shut off by a curtain and made pretty with fringe and pictures, seemed almost like tiny sleeping rooms. Moreover, the banking of earth over the framework of the lodge kept out the chill winds and biting cold of winter. But here, in The Stoned tepee, where the skin covering was old and torn, one must often suffer. At least so thought Timid Hare as she looked up now and then from her work to get acquainted with her new home. "Besides, it is so small," she said to herself, "and only two people in the whole household before I came. How strange it is!" It was quite true that the ways of the Dahcotas were unlike those of the Mandans. Each family lived by itself and thus the home did not need to be so large. Timid Hare did not know this, nor that the people, as a rule, lived in great comfort. They preferred tents, rather than houses like those of the Mandans, of frame-work covered with earth because they liked to move from place to place and they could thus carry their homes with them. Yet their tepees were warm and comfortable because the covering of strong, thick buffalo skins was generally double. Fires were kept burning on their hearths in winter and supplies of food and clothing were easy to obtain from the wild creatures of the woods and prairies. What more could any red people wish? Timid Hare had heard her foster father tell much of the powerful Dahcotas and that they were rich, as Indians count riches. "Why are they so powerful?" she now asked herself. "Ugh! it was because of their fierce war spirit. It was this that made them drive other tribes before them, so that they became free to roam over the prairies and enjoy the richest hunting grounds." "I cannot help myself," now thought the child. "If I should run away, the braves would either find and kill me, or I should be devoured by the hungry wolves that go forth at nightfall." But might not Three Bears make up a war party and go forth to seek her? "Alas! that may not be," Timid Hare told herself. "My dear father would himself meet death at the hands of these cruel warriors." The rent in the curtain was nearly sewed up when Black Bull stole into the lodge. He wanted to talk to the little stranger with eyes sad like his own, and he did not wish his mother to know it. Behind Black Bull came his dog, wolfish-looking like most of his breed, but as Black Bull squatted in his corner, the animal crouched close at his master's side as though he loved him.