Part 45 (1/2)

During the night they were again awakened by the screech in the tree-tops, and Yan, sitting up, said, ”Say, boys, that's nothing but that big Cat Owl.”

”So it is,” was Sam's answer; ”wonder I didn't think of that before.”

”I did,” said Guy; ”I knew it all the time.”

In the morning they went out to find their arrows. The medicine pole was a tall pole bearing a feathered s.h.i.+eld, with the tribal totem, a white Buffalo, which Yan had set up to be in Indian fas.h.i.+on. Sighting in line from the teepee over this, they walked on, looking far beyond, for they had learned always to draw the arrow to the head. They had not gone twenty-five feet before Yan burst out in unutterable astonishment: ”Look! Look at that--and _that_------”

There on the ground not ten feet apart were two enormous Horned Owls, both shot fairly through the heart, one with Sam's ”Sure-death” arrow, the other with Yan's ”Whistler”; both shots had been true, and the boys could only say, ”Well, if you saw that in print you would say it was a big lie!” It was indeed one of those amazing things which happen only in real life, and the whole of the Tribe with one exception voted a _grand coup_ to each of the hunters.

Guy was utterly contemptuous. ”They got so close they hit by chance an' didn't know they done it. If he had been shooting,” etc., etc., etc.

”How about that screech in the tree-tops, Guy?”

”Errrrh.”

What a fascination the naturalist always finds in a fine Bird. Yan revelled in these two. He measured their extent of wing and the length from beak to tail of each. He studied the pattern on their quills; he was thrilled by their great yellow eyes and their long, powerful claws, and he loved their every part. He hated to think that in a few days these wonderful things would be disgusting and fit only to be buried.

”I wish I knew hew to stuff them,” he said.

”Why don't you get Si Lee to show you,” was Sam's suggestion. ”Seems to me I often seen pictures of Injun medicine men with stuffed birds,”

he added shrewdly and happily.

”Well, that's just what I will do.”

Then arose a knotty question. Should he go to Si Lee and thereby turn ”White” and break the charm of the Indian life, or should he attempt the task of persuading Si to come down there to work without proper conveniences. They voted to bring Si to camp. ”Da might think we was backing out.” After all, the things needed were easily carried, and Si, having been ambushed by a scout, consented to come and open a night-school in taxidermy.

The tools and things that he brought were a bundle of tow made by unravelling a piece of rope, some cotton wool, strong linen thread, two long darning needles, a.r.s.enical soap worked up like cream, corn-meal, some soft iron wire about size sixteen and some of stovepipe size, a file, a pair of pliers, wire cutters, a sharp knife, a pair of stout scissors, a gimlet, two ready-made wooden stands, and last of all a good lamp. The boys. .h.i.therto had been content with the firelight.

Thus in the forest teepee Yan had his first lesson in the art that was to give him so much joy and some sorrow in the future.

Guy was interested, though scornful; Sam was much interested; Yan was simply rapt, and Si Lee was in his glory. His rosy red cheeks and his round figure swelled with pride; even his semi-nude head and fat, fumbling fingers seemed to partake of his general elation and importance.

First he stuffed the Owls' throats and wounds with cotton wool.

Then he took one, cut a slit from the back of the breast-bone nearly to the tail (_A_ to _B_, Fig. 1), while Yan took the other and tried faithfully to follow his example.

He worked the skin from the body chiefly by the use of his finger nails, till he could reach the knee of each leg and cut this through at the joint with the knife (_Kn,_ Fig. 1). The flesh was removed from each leg-bone down to the heel-joint (_Hl, Hl_, Fig. 1), leaving the leg and skin as in _Lg_, Figure 2. Then working back on each side of the tail, he cut the ”pope's nose” from the body and left it as part of the skin, with the tail feathers in it, and this, Si explained, was a hard place to get around. Sam called it ”rounding Cape Horn.” As the flesh was exposed Si kept it powdered thickly with corn-meal, and this saved the feathers from soiling.

Once around Cape Horn it was easy sailing. The skin was rapidly pushed off till the wings were reached. These were cut off at the joint deep in the breast (under _J J_, Fig. 1, or seen on the back, _W J_, Fig. 2), the first bone of each wing was cleared of meat, and the skin, now inside out and well mealed, was pushed off the neck up to the head.

Here Si explained that in most birds it would slip easily over the head, but in Owls, Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, Ducks and some others one had sometimes to help it by a lengthwise slit on the nape (_Sn_, Fig. 2). ”Owls is hard, anyway,” he went on, ”though not so bad as Water-fowl. If ye want a real easy bird for a starter, take a Robin or a Blackbird, or any land Bird about that size except Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.”

When the ears were reached they were skinned and pulled out of the skull without cutting, then, after the eyes were pa.s.sed, the skin and body looked as in Figure 2. Now the back of the head with the neck and body was cut off (_Ct_, Fig. 2), and the first operation of the skinning was done.

Yan got along fairly well, tearing and cutting the skin once or twice, but learning very quickly to manage it.

Now began the cleaning of the skin.

The eyes were cut clean out and the brains and flesh carefully sc.r.a.ped away from the skull.