288 USEFUL DOGS. 
smoke. This is the style of the Comanches 
and most other tribes of the great plains. The 
doors of the lodges being closed with a skin, 
they are kept very comfortable in winter with 
but little fire. This is kindled in the centre, 
and a hole is left in the vertex of the lodge, 
through which the smoke is discharged so 
— that the interior is but seldom infected 
it. 
These lodges are always pitched or set up 
by the squaws, and with such expedition, that, 
upon the stopping of an itinerant band, a town 
springs up in a desert valley in afew minutes, 
as if by enchantment. The lodge-poles are 
often neatly prepared, and carried along from 
camp to camp. In conveying them, one end 
frequently drags on the ground; whereby the 
trail is known to be that of a band with fami- 
lies, as war parties never carry lodge-poles. 
The Chayennes, Sioux and some other north- 
ern tribes, often employ dogs for carrying and 
dragging their lodge covers and poles; indeed 
for conveying most of their light baggage: 
but, for ordinary travelling purposes and pack- 
ing their more weighty baggage, they use 
horses. So few navigable waters traverse the 
Prairies, that none of the Indians of the high 
plains have learned the use of canoes or wa- 
ter-craft of any kind. 
There is some variety in the dress in vogue 
among the different tribes; though they all use 
moccasins, leggins, flap or breech-clout, and, 
when not in active pursuits, they generally 
wrap their bodies in buffalo rugs, blankets or 
ee 
