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That is a great advantage which it has, in the eyes of the Indians, over the skins of other species of deer, as the moose and caribou for the leather made from these, after a wetting, becomes harsh and rigid and requires a great deal of rubbing to render it soft again. Lucien knew how to dress the elk-hide, and could make leather out of it as well as any Indian squaw in the country.
This day was appropriated to roofing it. We first laid a row of the clap-boards, projecting considerably over the eaves so as to cast the water far out. These we secured near their lower ends by a long straight pole, which traversed the roof horizontally from gable to gable, and was lashed down by strips of wet elk-hide.
Over these she wore a shirt of buckskin, broidered with beads of many colors, and a necklace of elk teeth, wound twice about the throat. On her feet she wore new moccasins of tanned elk-hide, and these, too, were beaded in many colors. Her hair, now braided with strips of scarlet flannel, hung below the waist.
Hilliard turned nurse, a puzzled, anxious nurse. He would sit up in his living-room half the night, and when sleep overpowered his anxiety he would fall prone on the elk-hide rug before his fire. At last Sheila pulled herself up and crept about the house. She spent a day in the big log chair before Hilliard's hearth, looking very wan, shrinking from speech, her soft mouth gray and drawn.
She softly closed the door, not to awaken Leander and his slumbering lady, and broke into the running gait that the Indians use on their all-day journeys, the elk-hide moccasins falling soft as snow-flakes on the trail. Dolly she missed chiefly for her companionship, for Judith had not the white man’s utter helplessness without a horse in this country of high altitudes.
When I put on my new elk-hide knickerbockers with cuffs of dressed buckskin laced around my calves, and my beautiful soft buckskin shirt tucked in at the waist I began to feel like a real Nimrod, but after I added my “Moo-loch-Capo,” the shooting jacket with elk-teeth buttons, pulled a pair of shank moccasins over my feet and donned a cap made of lynx skin, I was as happy as a child with its Christmas stocking.
The major's delight with the moccasins failed to cheer her up. Trying to win her smiles, he told her the moccasins were so beautiful that he wished to give them to a friend. Would she take the elk-hide away with her, and make another pair of moccasins for himself! She finally left, with strangely slow step, and backward glances.
All night mongrel curs, tearing about the enclosure in packs, kept noisy watch. Twice Grant and I went out to reconnoitre. We saw only a whitish wolf scurrying through the long grass. Grant thought this had disturbed the dogs; but I was not so sure. Indeed, I felt prepared to trace features of Le Grand Diable under every elk-hide, or wolf-skin in which a cunning Indian could be disguised.
One pair of the gloves Cudjo intended to use himself the other was for me. Of course, the rest were to take no part in the robbery, but only to stand at a safe distance and look on. "In addition to the gloves, a couple of masks were cut out of elk-hide, and with strings fitted to our faces. These, with our thick deerskin overcoats, would protect us against the stings of all the bees in creation.
"'You couldn't have helped them any, she said, 'and you can go back, if you wish, with the guard. Then she told me how she had visited the camp with her brother Robert and had seen them bound with stout strips of elk-hide. They had explained the accident and how one of them, to give me time at the start, had put himself in my place." Tisdale halted a moment; a wave of emotion crossed his face.
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