Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER XI

  TANNING A BUCKSKIN

  When Joe learned that the camp was not to move the next day he toldJack that here was his opportunity to tan his deer hide, and that afterthe work of cutting and branding was over he would speak to McIntyreabout doing this job of tanning. There were men enough to do herd duty,and the boys thought that in the few hours of daylight that remainedafter the day's work was done they could get the skin in fair shape.

  "Of course," said Joe, "we can't make a good job of it; an Indian hasall the time there is, and he does his tanning slowly and does it well.We'll have to be satisfied with a rough job, but anyhow we can get thehide fairly soft, and it can be worked on again later."

  As soon as the outfit had got into camp in the afternoon, Joe went tothe cook tent and borrowed Frank's spade, and going down near to thestream and choosing a place where the grass grew fairly thick, he beganto dig a hole considerably larger than a water bucket. When he had madethe hole a foot and a half deep, he got into it and tramped down thesoil on the bottom, scraping up anything that was loose and finallyleaving a fairly smooth and hard surface. While working at this, heasked Jack to go to the wagon and bring the skin, and also the skullof the deer, which was tied to one of the bows of the wagon near thehide. Jack presently returned with both.

  "I didn't know you had saved the skull, Joe," he said; "it looks as ifit had been partly cooked. Did you save it for the brains?"

  "Just for that," was the reply. "You know, of course, that the brainsis a pretty important part of the operation of tanning. I did think Imight get the brains of a beef from some animal that we'd kill, but ofcourse we never could be sure of having a chance to do our tanning justafter the beef had been killed, so I thought I'd save this skull; andto keep it from spoiling I stuck it in the ashes that night we skinnedthe deer, and hauled some coals over it, and asked Frank not to throwit away if he found it. It sort of cooked and dried during the night,and doesn't seem to have spoiled a bit."

  By this time the hole seemed to suit Joe. He took the deer's hide andcut the string which bound it to the willow hoop, then began to foldit--taking care not to break the skin--until he made it into a more orless square package, flesh side out, somewhat less in size than thebottom of the hole. He placed it in the bottom of the hole, and put onit a rather heavy stone to hold it in position. Then, taking a bucket,he went down to the stream and brought two or three bucketfuls of waterwhich he poured into the hole until it was almost full.

  "This hole is close to the camp, and nothing is likely to disturb theskin during the night," he said; "but the coyotes might find it, andI don't mean to take any chances, so I'm going to cover it up. MaybeFrank will lend us the tail gate of his wagon to put over it. I'll askhim, anyhow."

  The cook, on being appealed to, declined to lend the tail gate of thecook wagon.

  "Why don't you get the tail gate of the bed wagon and use that?" hesuggested.

  Joe at once did so. He carried the end gate out and placed it over thehole, and the boys put two or three heavy stones on it.

  "Now," said Joe, "I need a sort of beam to use in scraping the hair offthis hide, and I reckon one of these young cottonwoods will do. I wishwe had a tree right here to rest it against."

  "What's the matter with that box elder over there with the low fork? Ifyou make your pole long enough you can rest it in that fork."

  "Right you are," said Joe. "I'll go down and get one of those youngtrees and you'd better come along, because that green wood is prettyheavy, and if we cut a long pole it'll take us both to pack it over."

  The grove was only fifty yards away, and Joe soon felled a young tree,which was six or eight inches through at the butt. Cutting fifteen feetoff the larger end, he and Jack carried it over and soon wedged it inthe fork of the box elder, only a short distance from the hole wherethe hide was soaking.

  "Now," Joe explained, "I've got to peel this stick, because any littlelumps on the bark are likely to make us cut the hide."

  They set to work and in a few minutes the lower five or six feet of thepole was free from its bark and shone white in the sun. They lookedover the wood, and shaved down one or two little lumps until thesurface of the peeled wood was quite smooth.

  "There," exclaimed Joe; "that's all we can do to-night. My scraper isin my bed. I tied that up to the bows of the wagon until it got dry;and to-morrow, after our work is done, it won't take long to scrape thehair from the hide and to put on the brains. I'd like to have a daymore to work on the thing, but we've got to do the best we can in thetime we have."

  The next day, after the work was over and the horses turned out, Joerepaired to the hole where the hide was soaking, and Jack went withhim. Again they had recourse to the cook, who, after some grumbling,gave them half a dozen nails.

  When the tail gate of the wagon was removed, the boys discovered thatmuch of the water in the hole had soaked away into the soil, and thetop of the stone on the deer hide was above the water. The hide,however, was still covered. After the stone had been removed and thehide taken out, they found it perfectly soft and pliable.

  Joe carried it down to the stream and thoroughly rinsed it there,thus removing all the earth which clung to it. When he took it fromthe water he squeezed from it all the moisture that he could, thencarried it up and hung it over the leaning pole, hair side out, andhead toward the upper end. Now, with a stone, he drove a couple ofnails into the pole and to them he fastened the head of the hide. Thenhe produced his scraper. Jack at once recognized it as a part of thedeer's foreleg--the double bone that runs down from the elbow to meetthe deer's wrist--what is usually called the knee. Of course Jackknew that in the hoofed animals the bone of the upper arm, which iscalled the humerus, is altogether hidden within the body and that thejoint of the foreleg close to the body corresponds with man's elbow.Joe's scraper was the bone running from this elbow down to the deer'sknee, and Jack was interested and somewhat astonished--for he had neverbefore thought about the matter--to see what a splendid natural scraperthis bone made. He said as much to Joe.

  "Didn't you ever notice," asked Joe, "how often an Indian uses somenatural and common thing for a tool in his work? I've seen that often,and it always made me wonder. Now you see this tool, in its curvedshape and with that thin edge there of one of the bones, makes a greatscraper. It's almost like a drawing-knife; and then look at the twohandles on the ends--ain't that fine? The Indian that showed me how totan, scraped the edge of his bone and made it a little sharper thanthis one is; but I reckon this will do all right; anyhow, we'll try. Ofcourse, if we hadn't saved this bone from the deer's leg, we could haveused a beef rib, or even the back of a knife; but this is the best andhandiest thing I know of."

  "That seems to me about a perfect tool for this work," declared Jack;"and I wonder at it too."

  Joe took the leg bone of the deer and standing before the skin whichhung over the pole, flesh side to the wood, began with long evenstrokes to scrape the hair from it. To Jack's surprise this came awayreadily and evenly, leaving the naked hide smooth and white. From timeto time Joe shifted the skin, and gradually removed the hair from thewhole hide down to the very edges, though on the head and ears thework was more raggedly done than on the neck, back and sides. Beforevery long, though, the skin was absolutely hairless, and as white onthe hair side as it was white on the flesh side when Joe turned itover. It was quite free from superfluous tissue, for the boys hadcleaned it well before stretching it.

  After the hair had all been removed, Joe took the hide down to thestream and gave it a thorough washing, kneading it together as if toget out of it all the animal matter that had been left on it, andfinally, weighing it down with stones, left it there to soak. Meanwhilehe sent Jack back to the cook tent to bring a wash basin with a littlewarm water; and when Jack returned, he found that Joe had split thedeer's skull. In a moment the brains of the animal were turned into thewarm water, where they were crushed and pulverized by the boys' f
ingersuntil the water was all whitish and looked like soapsuds with a fewwhite particles floating in it.

  "Really, these brains ought to be heated for a while over the fire,"explained Joe; "but we haven't much time to fuss, and maybe the hotwater will answer just as well. What we want to do is to get thesebrains as fine as we can, and then we must build a little fire and warmthe mixture again, and then put it on the skin."

  They got together a few small sticks and chips and built a little fire;and then set the basin on it, having a bucket partly full of waterclose by.

  Then Joe went down to the stream where he had left the hide soaking,and after shaking it about in the water to free it from any sedimentthat might have caught on it, he lifted it up and brought it to thegrass near the fire, and then folded it over to make a long narrowpiece. He took hold of one end, and Jack of the other, and they twistedit and wrung out almost all the water. It was surprising to Jack nowhow little the hide looked like the deer skin of an hour before. Two orthree times the hide was unfolded and stretched out and then doubledagain and the boys put all the power of their arms into the wringingprocess.

  "The best way," said Joe, "would be to knot the skin around the limb ofa tree and twist it just as hard as a man can twist; but we can't dothat now."

  When all the water possible had been wrung from the skin, it wasunfolded, and Joe told Jack to help him stretch it and get it again tosomething like its natural shape. They worked for some time at this,pulling against each other, across and sidewise of the skin, and onehand pulling against the other at the edges; then, when the skin hadagain taken somewhat the shape of the dried hide of the day before, itwas spread on the grass as flat as possible.

  Now Joe added water to the brains in the basin which were juststeaming, until he had increased the quantity of the mixture aboutthree times; and carrying the basin over to where the hide lay, hebegan to take the fluid in his hand and to spread it smoothly over thehair side of the skin, rubbing it in as he did so.

  When Jack saw what was being done, he took hold also, and soon thewhole skin was covered with the mixture, which was rubbed in andkneaded with the knuckles, especially near the edges of the hide andabout the head and neck.

  "They say," explained Joe, "that the main part of the tanning isthe way you put the brains on, and the way you work the thing dryafterward."

  By this time the sun was getting low.

  "I don't know whether we'll be able to finish this chore to-night ornot," Joe said. "After the brains have been put on, it ought to beleft in the sun to be set up and then it ought to be dried; but I'mafraid we can't do that. We'll have to quit now before very long."

  After the brains had been thoroughly applied, Joe began to fold androll up the skin until it was in a tight ball; and then he sat down andmade a cigarette.

  "That's about as far," he said, "as we'll be able to go to-night.Before we go to bed I'll spread the skin out, and to-morrow we'll haveto let it dry in the wagon. I'm afraid it won't be much of a job oftanning: it's had to be done too fast and spread out over too muchtime. If we were going to lie over here to-morrow, I'd give it a goodsoaking in water and then start in to work it soft and dry; but that'ssomething that'll have to wait."

  This was what had to be done; and the next morning when Jack lookedinto the cook wagon where the hide was again tied to the bows, he sawthat it had greatly shrunk, and though it had the color of buckskin, itlooked almost like a piece of rawhide.

  A few days later, Jack and Joe, having two or three hours which theycould devote to finishing their tanning, again set to work at thehide. As soon as they came into camp, Joe looked up a place in theshade where the water was deep, and put the hide there to soak. Then,when they were able to get at it, they gave it a thorough washing andrinsed it many times in the water, and then took it over to a nearbytree which had low branches on it. Here one end of the hide was doubledabout a branch and the other fastened to a short stout stick, and firstJoe, later relieved by Jack, twisted the hide rope against the branchuntil the water was again all out of it. Once more it was taken downas before and pulled and stretched on its edges until it was broughtback nearly to its natural shape. Then Joe, taking off his shoes andstockings, sat down on the ground and began to pull the hide this wayand that, often throwing the hide over his feet and slowly dragging itover the feet toward the body. He rubbed the hide between his hands,shifting the hands constantly, and with a motion as if he wished tobreak up the fiber of the skin. Jack watched him and when he saw thepurpose of this manipulation sat down beside him and helped.

  "The northern Indians, Joe," he said, "have what seems to me a betterplan than that--they have a rope running from the top of a pole down toa pin in the ground and pull the hide back and forth over that. Or I'veseen them tie up a buffalo shoulder-blade with a big hole cut in it toa pole, and, passing the deer skin right through the hole in the bone,they pull it backward and forward through that. It's a labor-savingscheme; I guess very likely it doesn't make quite as good buckskin asyour way, but it saves a whole lot of elbow-grease."

  "I should think it would," answered Joe; "and what's the matter withtrying that rope scheme right now? I'll go to my saddle and get my ropeand we can drive a pin in the ground here; and between you and me Ibelieve we can soften that thing in pretty short order."

  While Joe had gone for the rope, Jack whittled a long sharp pin notchedat the larger end; and after Joe had fastened the rope to a branchabove, they drew it tight down to the pin and fixed it there securely,and in a few moments were hard at work softening the hide by pullingit backward and forward against the rope. It was extraordinary howsoft and limp the hide became and how soon it began to look like realbuckskin. When the hide was quite dry and they took it off and felt it,Jack congratulated Joe on having done a mighty good job of tanning.

  That night in camp he showed the buckskin to Hugh, who praised ithighly, and said that when smoked it would make part of a good shirt.

  "You've got to smoke it, though," said Hugh, "or else every time itgets wet it will stiffen up and be just like a board, and will have tobe rubbed soft again."

  "Oh, I know, of course, it's no good until it has been smoked," repliedJoe; "but in this camp we've got to do our tanning when we can, andthere won't be any chance to smoke it until the next time we lie oversomewhere."

  "Well," suggested Hugh, "why don't you wait until you get your otherbuckskin? Then you can sew them together to make a kind of bag, andbuild a small smoke and fix your bag up over the fire so that the smokewill go into the mouth of the bag."

  "That would be a good idea," said Joe. "I guess we'll wait for ourother buckskin first."