Straightway every man, woman, and child set about either slicing the meat as thin as it could be cut with sharp knives, or putting together racks made of sticks, on which the strips of flesh were to be hung and exposed to the rays of the sun, as well as to the smoke of the fires that were to be built directly beneath them.
CURING THE MEAT
It was disagreeable work, and yet we were all, even to the smallest girl, content to do our part, knowing that we were thus laying up food for the future when it might not be possible to procure game, and when all the stores we had brought with us from Pike County had been eaten.
The arms of the men who acted as carvers were stained with blood to the elbows, while the hands and even the faces of the women and children who carried the sliced meat to hang it on the framework of sticks, were colored in the same way.
In addition to curing the meat in the sun and smoking it, some of the men made what is called pemmican, a most disagreeable looking mixture of flesh and fat which I afterward came to eat greedily, when we had nothing else with which to satisfy our hunger.
Pemmican is made by first drying the very thinnest of thin slices of meat in the sun, until they are so hard that it is possible to rub or pound them to a powder.
A bag is then formed of the buffalo skin, and into it is packed powdered meat sufficient to fill it considerably more than half full, after which tallow is melted and poured into the bag until it can hold no more. Then the entire mass is allowed to cool and harden. It is then fit for eating, so father said; but mother, when the time came that we were glad to have our portion of the stuff, always boiled it so it might be served hot.
It is not appetizing to me, and because I have seen the mixture prepared I can eat it only when I am very hungry.
A WASH DAY
Two full days were spent in curing the meat and making pemmican, and even then we did not continue the journey immediately, for the work had brought our clothing to such a condition that a day for washing was absolutely necessary. Therefore we remained for another twenty-four hours.