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.
