Jack the Young Cowboy: An Eastern Boy's Experiance on a Western Round-up

by George Bird Grinnell

"Yes," said Joe, "it is; at least, that's what I've been told. All I know about tanning was taught me by the Navajos down south, and they make awful good soft buckskin."

"I have never done any tanning; but I have seen a heap of robes dressed by women in the Blackfeet country. They tan a buffalo robe in a wonderful way, so that it is as soft as a piece of cloth; but they don't make good buckskin. According to all I have heard, the mountain Indians make the best buckskin."

"That's what they say," answered Joe. "I've seen some wonderful buckskin made by the Utes, and by the Navajos too."

"You have been down among the Navajos, have you?" Jack asked, as he sat down on the ground and, taking out his pocket-knife, began to work on the skin. "I'm interested in them, for when I was a little fellow I used to read Mayne Reid's books, and they had lots to say about the Navajos, and about the raids they used to make down in Mexico."

"Yes," replied Joe, "they were certainly great raiders; and they've got lots of men and women and children there in the camp that are as white as I am. Most of them, they say, were captured down in Mexico as little children and brought up and raised in the tribe, and now, so far as their feelings go, are just as pure Navajo as anybody could be."

"I guess that's so. There isn't anything in blood or race that makes a white man different from an Indian, if he is brought up in an Indian way."

"Not much. Those Navajos, too, are mighty handy with tools and with their fingers. I reckon you've seen lots of Navajo blankets, and likely, too, you may have seen some of the silversmith work they do. They make fine rings and sort of pins, like the women wear at their throats, and they're pretty handy about setting bits of turquoise in silver. They make a whole lot of real pretty ornaments."

"I've heard something about that," said Jack; "though I've never seen any of their work, except maybe a blanket or two. And you say they're tanners, too?"

"Yes. I had a kind of friend in the camp once when I stayed down there, and he showed me his way of tanning; and he certainly did make nice buckskin."

"I wish you would tell me how to do it; or, better still, let me see you tan this hide," said Jack. "But the first thing you want to do with this hide is to try to stretch it flat, and that you can't do in the common way. Why don't you treat it the way the trappers treat beaver skins?"