many years ago, there lived in the high regions of switzerland and france a people called the lake-dwellers.

these people did not live on land, as we do, but on the many lakes hidden among the high mountains.

the mountain-sides were thick with forests which hid the lake-houses from the people who lived on the land.

lodrix was the chief’s son, and he was a very brave boy though he was only twelve years old.

this little boy had flaxen hair and blue eyes. his fair skin was very much tanned, because he was out of doors much of the time.

his clothing was of deerskin and was thrown loosely about him.

lodrix looked very much like his mother, but her dress was very different.

her waist was of coarse brown cloth fastened under a skirt of deerskin, and her shoulders and arms were bare.

her thick light hair was coiled on the top of her head and had many bone and bronze pins in it.

around her neck were beads of amber, bone and glass, and a necklace made from the teeth of wolves.

on her arms and legs she wore wide bronze bracelets. she was very proud of them, because not many women among the lake-dwellers had bracelets made of bronze.

lodrix’s father, the chief of the dormorants, was a very brave man.

his people loved him and always obeyed him.

one day, when the chief and his son were on the lake fishing, they heard the sound of a horn.

lodrix listened, then said, “that is mother’s call; she must need us.”

in great haste they paddled toward the sound of the horn, and across the lake they could see the mother waving her hands to them.

she stood on a platform which was built upon thousands of cedar piles, driven into the bottom of the lake.

these piles were held in place by stones and rushes that had been let down into the water.

as they paddled nearer, they could see that something had happened.

they hurried to climb the notched ladder which led to the platform.

then they followed the mother into the one-room hut which was their home.

they sat down on blocks of wood about the stone fire-place, while the mother told the chief what had happened.

she said that one of their tribe, who had just returned from hunting, had told her that the bear tribe on the land was getting ready to burn down the lake-dweller homes.

when lodrix heard this, he ran to his father and said, “may i get ready to fight, father?”

the chief put his hands on his son’s head, saying, “my brave boy.”

then he told lodrix to go out and call the people together.

soon they came, hundreds of them, from the many square huts which were crowded about the chief’s home.

these houses were built from cedar poles matted together with twigs and plastered both inside and out with two or three inches of clay.

there were one or two small windows without shutters and one low door.

the roofs were made of straw or rushes and the floors were often plastered with clay and gravel.

in the center of the roof was a hole through which the smoke escaped, and in the floor was a small trap-door that opened over the lake.

the lake-dwellers often fished from these doors.