After trimming them, he tied three together with a long deerskin thong, about eighteen inches from the tops of the poles, carrying the thong about them a few times and leaving the end of it trailing down.

The rest of the poles he stood against the sides of the tripod at regular intervals all the way around.
"Oh, it's an Indian house!" cried Emma.

"It really is." Thus far the work had been quickly accomplished, and now came the enclosing of the structure.

This Willy did by laying strips of bark on the sloping "lodge"-poles, carrying the leather thong about them to hold the bark firmly against the poles.

The entrance, formed by spreading poles apart, faced the waters of the Little Big Branch.
The tepee was finished shortly before eleven o'clock that morning, when Willy hung a blanket of deerhide over the doorway.