If any of my readers ever have a chance to make a beaver stew, or beaver-tail soup, I would advise that they boil the meat with a liberal pinch of “mixed spices”—the kind one buys in paper boxes. Beaver-tail soup with wild rice thus properly seasoned is much too good for a king, but just the food for a tired and hungry camper.
Bruce and Ray could not get enough of the soup and when the feast was over there was nothing left but some bones and scraps for Tawny. It had been a real feast, and when the few dishes were washed, the lads built a camp-fire and asked Ganawa to tell them of his own boyhood of long ago. [[186]]
CHAPTER XXIV
MUCH WORK AND A CLUE
Next day the lads learned still more about the work of an Indian hunter. There were five more beavers to be skinned, and of all fur-bearing animals the beaver is the hardest to skin. The skin will not peel off like that of a rabbit, but almost every inch of it has to be cut and great care is needed not to cut into the fur. It took Ray and Bruce as long to skin one beaver as it took Ganawa to skin three.
When this work was done, Bruce built a scaffold to cure and smoke the meat. “We cannot let so much good meat go to waste,” said Ganawa, “and the weather is still too warm to keep it without smoking.” Each beaver furnished from fifteen to twenty pounds of meat, and all of them were fat, as beavers nearly always are, although they [[187]]are strict vegetarians, living on bark, brush, and aquatic plants.
Ray helped Ganawa to stretch the skins in hoops of willow. A beaver skin, when thus stretched by thongs inside of a hoop, is set aside to dry, but before it is dried all adhering flesh and fat must be carefully scraped off, otherwise the skin will spoil.
“I don’t think I want to be a beaver-trapper,” remarked Ray, when he saw how much work it took to prepare a skin for use or for the market.
A large beaver skin, when thus stretched and dried, is oval in shape about three feet long by two and a half wide. It took about a week to dry the skins, and then the lads found that there was still much work to be done before they could enjoy a warm beaver robe. As there was no time to tan the skins, Ganawa and the lads softened the dry skins by other processes as much as possible. They worked them with their hands and feet and beat them with sticks until they were quite soft and pliable, although not as [[188]]soft as tanned skins. Then Ganawa laid the six skins flat on the ground and with a charred stick he marked them for cutting. “The Chippewa women can do this much better,” he remarked laughing, “but in this camp we have to be our own women.”