"If ye have a Dog or a Horse with ye he kin bring ye home all right. Never knew them to fail but oncet, an' that was a fool Horse; there is sech oncet in awhile, though there's more fool Dogs.
"But come right down to it, the compass is the safest thing. The sun and stars is next, an' if ye know your friends will come ye'r best plan is to set right down and make two smoke fires, keep them a-going, holler every little while, and keep calm. Ye won't come to no harm unless ye'r a blame fool, an' such ought to stay to hum, where they'll be nursed."
XIII
Tanning Skins and Making Moccasins
Sam had made a find. A Calf had been killed and its skin hung limp on a beam in the barn. His father allowed him to carry this off, and now he appeared with a "fresh Buffalo hide to make a robe."
"I don't know how the Injuns dress their robes," he explained, "but Caleb does, and he'll tell you, and, of course, I'll pay no attention."
The old Trapper had nothing to do, and the only bright spots in his lonely life, since his own door was shut in his face, were visits to the camp. These had become daily, so it was taken as a matter of course when, within an hour after Sam's return, he "happened round."
"How do the Indians tan furs and robes?" Yan asked at once.
"Wall, different ways—"
But before he could say more Hawkeye reappeared and shouted:
"Say, boys, Paw's old Horse died!" and he grinned joyfully, merely because he was the bearer of news.
"Sappy, you grin so much your back teeth is gettin' sunburned," and the Head Chief eyed him 
sadly.
"Well, it's so, an' I'm going to skin out his tail for a scalp. I bet I'll be the Injunest one of the crowd."
"Why don't you skin the hull thing, an' I'll show you how to make lots of Injun things of the hide," Caleb added, as he lighted his pipe.
"Will you help me?
"It's same as skinnin a Calf. I'll show you where to get the sewing sinew after the hide's off."
So the whole camp went to Burns's field. Guy hung back and hid when he saw his father there drawing the dead Horse away with the plough team.
"Good-day, Jim," was Caleb's greeting, for they were good friends. "Struck hard luck with the Horse?"
"No! Not much. Didn't cost nothing; got him for boot in a swap. Glad he's dead, for he was foundered."
"We want his skin, if you don't."
"You're welcome to the hull thing."
"Well, just draw it over by the line fence we'll bury what's left when we're through."
"All right. You hain't seen that durn boy o' mine, have you?"
"Why, yes; I seen him not long ago," said Sam. "He was p'inting right for home then."
"H-m. Maybe I'll find him at the house."
"Maybe you will." Then Sam added under his breath, "I don't think."
So Burns left them, and a few minutes later Guy sneaked out of the woods to take a secondary part in the proceedings.
Caleb showed them how to split the skin along the under side of each leg and up the belly. It was slow work skinning, but not so unpleasant as Yan feared, since the animal was fresh.
Caleb did the most of the work; Sam and Yan helped. Guy assisted with reminiscences of his own Calf-skinning and with suggestions drawn from his vast experiences.
When the upper half of the skin was off, Caleb remarked: "Don't believe we can turn him over, and when the Injuns didn't have a Horse at hand to turn over the Buffalo they used to cut the skin in two down the line of the back. I guess we better do that. We've got all the rawhide we need, anyhow."
So they cut off the half they had skinned, took the tail and the mane for "scalps," and then Caleb sent Yan for the axe and a pail.
He cut out a lump of liver and the brains of the Horse. "That," said he, "is for tanning, an' here is where the Injun woman gits her sewing thread."
He made a deep cut alongside the back bone from the middle of the back to the loin, then forcing his fingers under a broad band of whitish fibrous tissue, he raised it up, working and cutting till it ran down to the hip bone and forward to the ribs. This sewing sinew was about four inches wide, very thin, and could easily be split again and again till it was like fine thread.
"There," he said, "is a hank o' thread. Keep that. It'll dry up, but can be split at any time, and soaking in warm water for twenty minutes makes it soft and ready for use. Usually, when she's sewing, the squaw keeps a thread soaking in her mouth to be ready. Now we've got a Horse skin and a Calfskin I guess we better set up a tan-yard."
"Well, how do you tan furs, Mr. Clark?"
"Good many different ways. Sometimes just scrape and scrape till I get all the grease and meat off the inside, then coat it with alum and salt and leave it rolled up for a couple of days till the alum has struck through and made the skin white at the roots of the hair, then when this is half dry pull and work it till it is all soft.
"But the Injuns don't have alum and salt, and they make a fine tan out of the liver and brains, like I'm going to do with this."
"Well, I want to do it the Indian way."
"All right, you take the brains and liver of your Calf."
"Why not some of the Horse brains and liver?"
"Oh, I dunno. They never do it that way that I've seen. Seems like it went best with its own brains."
"Now," remarked the philosophical Woodpecker, "I call that a wonderful provision of nature, always to put Calf brains and liver into a Calfskin, and just enough to tan it."
"First thing always is to clean your pelt, and while you do that I'll put the Horsehide in the mud to soak off the hair." He put it in the warm mud to soak there a couple of days, just as he had done the Calfskin for the drum-heads, then came to superintend the dressing of the Buffalo "robe."
Sam first went home for the Calf brains and liver, then he and Yan scraped the skin till they got out a vast quantity of grease, leaving the flesh side bluish-white and clammy, but not greasy to the touch. The liver of the Calf was boiled for an hour and then mashed up with the raw brains into a tanning "dope" or mash and spread on the flesh side of the hide, which was doubled, rolled up and put in a cool place for two days. It was then opened out, washed clean in the brook and hung till nearly dry. Then Caleb cut a hardwood stake to a sharp edge and showed Yan how to pull and work the hide over the edge till it was all soft and leathery.
The treatment of the Horsehide was the same, once the hair was removed, but the greater thickness needed a longer soaking in the "tan dope."
After two days the Trapper scraped it clean and worked it on the sharp-edged stake. It soon began to look like leather, except in one or two spots. On examining these he said:
"H-m, Tanning didn't strike right through every place. So he buttered it again with the mash and gave it a day more; then worked it as before over the angle of the pole till it was soft and fibrous.
"There," said he, "that's Injun tan leather. I have seen it done by soaking the hide for a few days in liquor made by boiling Hemlock or Balsam bark in water till it's like brown ink, but it ain't any better than that. Now it needs one thing more to keep it from hardening after being wet. It has to be smoked."
So he made a smoke fire by smothering a clear fire with rotten wood; then fastening the Horsehide into a cone with a few wooden pins, he hung it in the dense smoke for a couple of hours, first one side out, then the other till it was all of a rich smoky-tan colour and had the smell so well known to those who handle Indian leather.
"There it is; that's Injun tan, an' I hope you see that elbow grease is the main thing in tannin'."
"Now, will you show us how to make moccasins and war-shirts?" asked Little Beaver, with his usual enthusiasm.