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

by George Bird Grinnell

After the hair had all been removed, Joe took the hide down to the stream and gave it a thorough washing, kneading it together as if to get out of it all the animal matter that had been left on it, and finally, weighing it down with stones, left it there to soak. Meanwhile he sent Jack back to the cook tent to bring a wash basin with a little warm water; and when Jack returned, he found that Joe had split the deer's skull. In a moment the brains of the animal were turned into the warm water, where they were crushed and pulverized by the boys' fingers until the water was all whitish and looked like soapsuds with a few white particles floating in it.

"Really, these brains ought to be heated for a while over the fire," explained Joe; "but we haven't much time to fuss, and maybe the hot water will answer just as well. What we want to do is to get these brains as fine as we can, and then we must build a little fire and warm the mixture again, and then put it on the skin."

They got together a few small sticks and chips and built a little fire; and then set the basin on it, having a bucket partly full of water close by.

Then Joe went down to the stream where he had left the hide soaking, and after shaking it about in the water to free it from any sediment that might have caught on it, he lifted it up and brought it to the grass near the fire, and then folded it over to make a long narrow piece. He took hold of one end, and Jack of the other, and they twisted it and wrung out almost all the water. It was surprising to Jack now how little the hide looked like the deer skin of an hour before. Two or three times the hide was unfolded and stretched out and then doubled again and the boys put all the power of their arms into the wringing process.

"The best way," said Joe, "would be to knot the skin around the limb of a tree and twist it just as hard as a man can twist; but we can't do that now."

When all the water possible had been wrung from the skin, it was unfolded, and Joe told Jack to help him stretch it and get it again to something like its natural shape. They worked for some time at this, pulling against each other, across and sidewise of the skin, and one hand pulling against the other at the edges; then, when the skin had again taken somewhat the shape of the dried hide of the day before, it was spread on the grass as flat as possible.

Now Joe added water to the brains in the basin which were just steaming, until he had increased the quantity of the mixture about three times; and carrying the basin over to where the hide lay, he began to take the fluid in his hand and to spread it smoothly over the hair side of the skin, rubbing it in as he did so.

When Jack saw what was being done, he took hold also, and soon the whole skin was covered with the mixture, which was rubbed in and kneaded with the knuckles, especially near the edges of the hide and about the head and neck.

"They say," explained Joe, "that the main part of the tanning is the way you put the brains on, and the way you work the thing dry afterward."