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

by George Bird Grinnell

Jack brought another bucket of water, which Hugh set on the fire, and while it was heating he directed Jack to unlash the bear hide and to drag it out a little away from camp. After this had been done, he sent him down to look along the stream to see if he could find any birch or alder brush, telling him if he could do so to get enough branches to make thirty or forty wooden pins. Taking the ax, Jack went down the stream and could find neither birch nor alder. He did find, however, a thicket of small ash saplings, and cutting down half a dozen of these he put them on his back and dragged them back to camp.

"Couldn't find any birch?" said Hugh. "Well, I don't know as I'm much surprised. It's pretty well south for birch, but that makes better pins than 'most anything else. However, this ash will have to do, I reckon." He took the saplings and with the ax cut them into lengths of about eight or ten inches, and then taking the thickest ones he split them.

Then he said to Jack: "Get out your knife now, son, and help me whittle pegs. We want quite a lot of them, for I would like to stretch this hide nicely, and take it in in good shape."

For half or three-quarters of an hour the two were busily employed whittling down and pointing pins, and they had a large pile of them before Hugh declared that there were enough. They carried the pins over to where the bear skin lay and threw them on the ground; then turning the hide flesh side up they stretched it as nearly square as possible, and then with their jack-knives went round its border, cutting holes half an inch long in the margin of the hide at intervals of about six inches. When these had all been cut, the hide was again spread out, and Hugh, with the ax, drove two pins through holes, one in each side of the neck, and then, stretching the hide to its full length, drove two more in holes each about a foot on either side of the tail. Then two pins were driven at one side of the hide between fore and hind leg, and two on the other side, between fore and hind leg. The hide now was held in position, and going about it, Hugh, with great care, drove in his pins, stretching the hide so that it was nearly square, though a little longer from head to tail than from side to side. Of course, the four legs and the head made the square irregular, but, on the whole, Hugh declared, after he had finished, that it was a very good job.

"I shouldn't have stretched this hide quite so large, son," he said, "if it hadn't been so very well furred. Usually the hair is thin on the flanks, and if you stretch a hide much you get places on either flank just in front of the hind-legs where there is scarcely any hair at all, and a bear hide that shows up like that never brings a good price. You notice, though, that on this hide the fur is just about as good on the belly as it is on the back. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if your uncle bought this hide himself, instead of letting us sell it to some fur buyer.

"Now, I don't want the sun to burn it," he went on, "so we'll just go down to the creek and get a lot of willow brush and make a shade for it. If the sun shines all day on this fat it will more than half cook it, and that will spoil the hide."

Hugh and Jack went down to the stream, and cutting a lot of the green-leafed willows, brought them up and so arranged them that the direct rays of the sun were kept from the hide.

"Never dry a hide in the sun," said Hugh; "always in the shade. Let the wind and the dryness in the air take up the moisture for you. Then your hides will always sell well."

"Well, son," said Hugh, when the job of stretching the hide and shading it was ended, "do you feel pretty wolfish?"

"Yes," said Jack, "I believe I'm ready for dinner."