excerpt from the book..THE SQUATTER FOLKThe lazy warmth of a May afternoon, the spring following Orn Skinner'srelease from Auburn Prison, was reflected in the attitudes of three menlounging on the shore in front of "Satisfied" Longman's shack. At theirfeet, the waters of Cayuga Lake dimpled under the rays of the westernsun. Like a strip of burnished silver, the inlet wound its way throughthe swamp from the elevators and railroad stations near the foot ofsouth hill. Across the lake rose the precipitous slopes of East Hill,tapestried in green, etched here and there by stretches of winding whiteroad, and crowned by the buildings on the campus of Cornell University.Stretched from the foot of State Street on either side of the LehighValley track lay the Silent City, its northern end spreading severalmiles up the west shore of the Lake. Its inhabitants were canalers,fishermen and hunters, uneducated, rough and superstitious. They builttheir little huts in the simplest manner out of packing boxes and roughlumber and roofed them with pieces of tin and sheet iron. Squatters theywere appropriately named, because they paid no attention to land titles,but stuck their shacks wherever fancy indicated or convenience dictated.The people of the Silent City slept by day and went very quietly abouttheir work under the cover of darkness, for the game laws compelled thefishermen to pull their nets at night, and the farmers' chickens weremore easily caught, his fruit more easily picked when the sun waswarming China.