Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"What was the matter?" said Hugh. "You seemed to be having quite an active time down here."

"Active time!" said Jack, "I should say so! I had no idea that an animal as small as this antelope could shake me up as he did. I made a poor shot, for I hit him too high up, and from the way he breathed, I think I just cut the upper part of his lungs. I shall have to practice shooting if I am going to help keep the camp supplied with meat this summer."

"Oh, don't you bother about practicing," Hugh said. "Two or three shots will get you back into your old way again, but that's a regular green-horn trick to shoot too high. It seems to me that mighty few people know how low the life lies in any animal. I keep telling you where to shoot at in an antelope, and you must remember it."

"Of course you do, Hugh," said Jack; "I know that well enough. I try to shoot at that little curl of hair; that's what I aimed at, but you see I drew my sight too coarse."

"Well," said Hugh, "just a little shooting is what you need, and you'll get plenty of that in a very short time now."

Hugh got off his horse, and they began to skin the antelope, which was a very short operation. The hide strips off an antelope very easily, just as the hide strips off a deer. Jack noticed that on his side Hugh kept turning under the edge of the skin, so that the hair side was always next to the ground or else turned well under the edge. Jack, on the other hand, simply laid the hide on his side on the ground, and twisted and pulled it about; sometimes the flesh sides would come together, and some of the antelope hair rubbed off on the body.

Hugh said to him, "You might as well learn to skin an antelope right, son. You know the hair smells quite strong, and if you let the hair touch the meat, the meat gets this smell and tastes of it. Lots of people don't like that taste, and so I always make it a point to keep the hair from touching the skin. You see how I'm working it on my side, always keeping the flesh side to the body."

"I see," said Jack, "and now that you have told me, I see why you do it. Of course I've tasted the flavor of the antelope hide in the meat, and I don't like it a bit, myself. I will remember that after this in skinning. Are there other animals, the meat of which is affected by the touching of the hide?"

"Well," said Hugh, "the meat of the tame sheep gets an awful strong taste if the wool is allowed to rub against it, and sometimes I think the meat of the wild sheep gets the same taste; anyhow, it's just as well to keep the hair side of the hide away from the meat of the animal it belongs to. At best the hides of these animals are full of dirt and dust, and there is a common prejudice against making that sort of thing your food. We have to eat a lot of it, of course, but at the same time we don't want to eat any more than we have got to. You take the hide of a deer or an elk or a buffalo, just after you have stripped it off, rub your hand down the outside of it, and see what a lot of dirt you will get on your hand. Of course, the Indians don't think much about a little thing like that, and perhaps the average plainsman don't, but I've noticed a few times how very dirty these hides are, and it seems to me worth while to be as clean as we can with the skinning."

The antelope being lifted off the hide, its body was rested now for a moment on the top of a sage bush, while Hugh went to his saddle and from one of the strings behind it untied a cotton sack. The antelope was quickly quartered and the pieces packed in this sack, which was lashed on the unloaded horse, and they went on.