"Well, the moccasins is easy, but I won't promise about the war-shirts. That's pretty much a case of following the pattern of your own coat, with the front in one piece, but cut down just far enough for your head to go through, instead of all the way, and fixed with tie-strings at the throat and fringes at the seams and at the bottom; it hain't easy to do. But any one kin larn to make moccasins. There is two styles of them—that is, two main styles. Every Tribe has its own make, and an Injun can tell what language another speaks as soon as he sees his footgear. The two best known are the Ojibwa, with soft sole—sole and upper all in one, an' a puckered instep—that's what Ojibwa means—'puckered moccasin.' The other style is the one most used in the Plains. You see, they have to wear a hard sole, 'cause the country is full of cactus and thorns as well as sharp stones."
"I want the Sioux style. We have copied their teepee and war bonnet—and the Sioux are the best Indians, anyway."
"Or the worst, according to what side you're on," was Caleb's reply. But he went on: "Sioux Injuns are Plains Injuns and wear a hard sole. Let's see, now. I'll cut you a pair."
"No, make them for me. It's my Horse," said Guy.
"No, you don't. Your Paw give that to me." Caleb's tone said plainly that Guy's laziness had made a bad impression, so he had to stand aside while Yan was measured. Caleb had saved a part of the hide untanned though thoroughly cleaned. This was soaked in warm water till soft. Yan's foot was placed on it and a line drawn around the foot for a guide; this when cut out made the sole of one moccasin (A, cut below), and by turning it underside up it served as pattern to cut the other.
Now Caleb measured the length of the foot and added one inch, and the width across the instep, adding half an inch, and with these as greatest length and breadth cut out a piece of soft leather (B). Then in this he made the cut a b on the middle line one way and c d on the middle line the other way. A second piece the reverse of this was cut, and next a piece of soft leather for inside tongue (C) was sewn to the large piece (B), so that the edge a b of C was fast to a b of B. A second piece was sewn to the other leather (B reversed).
"Them's your vamps for uppers. Now's the time to bead 'em if you want to."
"Don't know how."
"Well, I can't larn you that; that's a woman's work. But I kin show you the pattern of the first pair I ever wore; I ain't likely to forget 'em, for I killed the Buffalo myself and seen the hull making." He might have added that he subsequently married the squaw, but he did not.
"There's about the style" [D]. "Them three-cornered red and white things all round is the hills where the moccasins was to carry me safely; on the heel is a little blue pathway with nothing in it: that is behind—it's past. On the instep is three red, white and blue pathways where the moccasin was to take me: they're ahead—in the future. Each path has lots of things in it, mostly changes and trails, an' all three ends in an Eagle feather—that stands for an honour. Ye kin paint them that way after they're made. Well, now, we'll sew on the upper with a good thick strand of sinew in the needle—or if you have an awl you kin do without a needle on a pinch—and be sure to bring the stitches out the edge of the sole instead of right through, then they don't wear off. That's the way." [E.] 
So they worked away, clumsily, while Guy snickered and sizzled, and Sam suggested that Si Lee would make a better squaw than both of them.
The sole as well as the upper being quite soft allowed them to turn the moccasin inside out as often as they liked—and they did like; it seemed necessary to reverse it every few minutes. But at length the two pieces were fastened together all around, the seam gap at the heel was quickly sewn up, four pairs of lace holes were made (a, b, c, d, in D), and an eighteen-inch strip of soft leather run through them for a lace.
Now Yan painted the uppers with his Indian paints in the pattern that Caleb had suggested, and the moccasins were done.
A squaw would have made half a dozen good pairs while Yan and Caleb made the one poor pair, but she would not have felt so happy about it.
XIV
Caleb's Philosophy
The tracks of Mink appeared from time to time on Yan's creekside mud albums, and at length another of these tireless watchers, placed at the Wakan Rock, reported to him that Mink as well as Skunks came there now for a nightly feast.
The Mink was a large one, judging by the marks, and Caleb was asked to help in trapping it.
"How do you trap Mink, Mr. Clark?" was the question.
"Don't trap 'em at all this time o' year, for they're no good till October," was the answer.
"Well, how do you trap them when they are in season?"
"Oh, different ways."
It was slow work, but Yan kept on and at length got the old man going.
"Airly days we always used a deadfall for Mink. That's made like this, with a bird or a Partridge head for bait. That kills him sure, sudden and merciful. Then if it's cold weather he freezes and keeps O.K. till you come around to get him; but in warm weather lots o' pelts are spoiled by being kept too long, so ye have to go round pretty often to save all you kill. Then some one brought in them new-fangled steel traps that catches them by the foot and holds them for days and days, some times, till they jest starve to death or chaw their foot off to get free. I mind once I ketched a Mink with only two legs left. He had been in a steel trap twice before and chawed off his leg to get away. Them traps save the trapper going round so often, but they're expensive, and heavy to carry, and you have got to be awful hard-hearted before ye kin use 'em. I tell ye, when I thought of all the sufferin' that Mink went through it settled me for steel traps. Since then, says I, if ye must trap, use a deadfall or a ketchalive, one or other; no manglin' an' tormentin' for days. I tell ye that thar new Otter trap that grabs them in iron claws ought to be forbid by law; it ain't human.
"Same way about huntin'. Huntin's great sport, an' it can't be bad, 'cause I can't for the life of me see that it makes men bad. 'Pears to me men as hunt is humaner than them as is above it; as for the cruelty—wall, we know that no wild animal dies easy abed. They all get killed soon or late, an' if it's any help to man to kill them I reckon he has as good a right to do it as Wolves an' Wildcats. It don't hurt any more—yes, a blame sight less—to be killed by a rifle ball than to be chawed by Wolves. The on'y thing I says is don't do it cruel—an' don't wipe out the hull bunch. If ye never kill a thing that's no harm to ye 'live an' no good to ye dead nor more than the country kin stand, 'pears to me ye won't do much harm, an' ye'll have a lot o' real fun to think about afterward.
"But I mind a feller from Europe, some kind o' swell, that I was guidin' out West. He had crippled a Deer so it couldn't get away. Then he sat down to eat lunch right by, and every few moments he'd fire a shot into some part or another, experimentin' an' aimin' not to kill it for awhile. I heard the shootin' an' blattin', an when I come up I tell ye it set my blood a-boilin'. I called him some names men don't like, an' put that Deer out o' pain quick as I could pull trigger. That bu'st up our party—I didn't want no more o' him. He come pretty near lyin' by the Deer that day. It makes me hot yet when I think of it.
"If he'd shot that Deer down runnin' an' killed it as quick as he could it wouldn't 'a' suffered more than if it had been snagged a little, 'cause bullets of right weight numb when they hit. The Deer wouldn't have suffered more than he naturally would at his finish, maybe less, an' he'd 'a' suffered it at a time when he could be some good to them as hunted him. An' these yer new repeatin' guns is a curse. A feller knows he has lots of shot and so blazes away into a band o' Deer as long as he can see, an lots gets away crippled, to suffer an' die; but when a feller has only one shot he's going to place it mighty keerful. Ef it's sport ye want, get a single-shot rifle, ef it's destruction, get a Gatling-gun.