“On the way,” said their friend, “I want you to go around to the coulee below town, where there’s three or four tepees of Sioux in camp. What do they do? Oh, make little things to sell in town—and not above begging a little. There’s one squaw we call Mary, who has been coming here a good many years. She makes about the finest moccasins we ever get. She made my wife a pair, out of buckskin white as snow. I don’t know where she got it.”
“The Sioux had parfleche soles to all their moccasins,” said John, wisely. “All the buffalo and Plains Indians did. The forest Indians had soft soles.”
“You’re right, son,” said the editor. “For modern bedroom moccasins, to sell to white women, Mary makes them all soft, with a shallow ankle flap. Most of the Indian men wear shoes now, but when she makes a pair of men’s moccasins she always puts on the raw-hide soles. You can see the hair on the bottoms, sometimes.”
“Buffalo hair?” smiled Jesse.
“Well, no. The Indians use beef-hide now. But they don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” said Jesse.