402 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Not. 10, 1894 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
The West of the Present and the Past. 
[Worn a Staff Correspondent.] 
New and Old Archery. 
Chicago, III., Sept. 28. — Any one can recall the popular 
fancy for the noble game of archery which was so 
generally spread over this country a dozen years or more 
ago. It faded and died practically because it was too 
noble a game for the populace. There are few archery 
cluhs and few archers left in America to-day. 
At Mandan, N. D., I found a man who still retains his 
love for archery, and who is not onlv an enthusiastic but 
a skillful archer to-day. This is Mr. I. T). Allen, who 
runs the Indian bazaar at that point. Mr. Allen makes of 
the long bow an efficient field arm, and he shows nicely 
mounted trophies of jack rabbits, cottontails, grouse and 
other game, all killed by himself with the bow and arrow. 
Mr. Allen does not use the Indian bow, but has a dozen 
of the most expensive long bows of English make, with 
raw hide backing, etc., etc. He prefers the old English 
yew and has some beauties of that wood, some of them 
stiffer than one would think a man of his weight could 
use, though long practice has given him mastery over his 
weapon. 
Mr. Allen and I walked out one bright, sunny Dakota 
day not long ago to have a try with the long bows. We 
enjoyed ourselves mostly at shooting for distance, as we 
started no game near the edge of the town. Mr. Allen 
showed himself possessed of a skill most unusal to find 
these days, and we had a lot of sport in our little compe- 
titions at a mark. At length we came upon a couple of 
Sioux tepees pitched on the summit of a ridge near town, 
and here we paused to investigate matters a little. The 
single Sioux brave and the three squaws and two pap- 
pooses who were keeping house there didn't seem to be 
troubled with any notions about cleanliness, but they 
were cheerful enough and ready to talk with Mr. Allen, 
who speaks Sioux very fluently. After a while we got 
the Sioux man out to show us a little of the incomparable 
skill of the Indian with the bow and arrow. He couldn't 
have hit a flock of meeting houses, and we both beat him 
till he looked foolish. He shot with the bow held hori- 
zontally across his stomach, letting the arrow fly with a 
push and a jerk. Evidently he had seen or heard of the 
old Indian fashion of handling a bow, but it was before 
his time. After a little he retired to his tepee and wouldn't 
shoot any more, lapsing into silence and smoke. We tried 
to buy his pipe, a goodish one of the red pipe clay, but it 
was a month later before Mr. Allen got it and sent it to 
me. 
These modern bows and arrows brought us naturally 
to the bows of the past, which we were well situated to 
study, Mr. Allen having over 125 Indian bows in his col- 
lection. I noticed in all these bows what I used to think 
was a defect caused by the Indian's lack of proportion — 
one side of the bow being straighter and stiffer than the 
other. I found tha,t the straighter half of the bow was 
always the lower half, that part representing the top 
being more crooked than the lower half. Mr. Allen told 
me that the Indians always made their bows thin, alleg- 
ing that this formation made them carry higher and fur- 
ther, for which there does seem philosophical ground of 
belief, when you come to look into it. Mr. Allen said 
that 'the Indians also purposely built their bows so that 
the strings crossed diagonally or on a line back from the 
arrow side or firing side of the bow. This is precisely 
what we would think would make accuracy impossible, 
but Mr. Allen showed that this feature was invariable. 
Mr. Allen said that the Indians put the double bend in 
the backs of their bows by smoking and heating the 
wood . This bend cannot be soaked out of one of the 
genuine old buffalo bows, which were not made to sell. 
How the Indians Made Arrows. 
The Sioux arrows were often or usually made of wil- 
lows, and my informant told me that the arrow maker 
was not particular whether or not his stick was straight. 
A good arrow maker would straighten almost any kind 
of a stick. He would heat it and bend it, over and over 
again. In straightening it, he would put it in his mouth 
and pull it into shape, holding it firmly in his teeth. All 
the well-made old-time arrows show numerous grooves 
and rings, running round and round the shaft. These are 
teeth marks, where the Indian rolled the shaft between 
his teeth. I have noticed them very plainly on a couple 
of Crow arrows given me by Col. Ike Allen, of Columbus, 
Mont. These two arrows I showed to the present head 
man of the Crows, old Plenty-Coups, and he said they 
were the genuine old buffalo arrows — that is, he told my 
friends so. I am rusty on Crow. Plenty-Coups took these 
arrows between his thumb and finger, by the neck, bal- 
ancing the arrow in that way; and he smiled as though 
the feel of them brought up the thought of other days. 
The Indian arrow maker did not work in a very big 
hurry in the old days, but he turns out more stuff to-day. 
Now, as in the past, he uses in his work a knife whose 
blade is filed on only one side, and that the reverse side, 
The Indian is built backwards, and in whittling he always 
pulls the knife toward him, instead of pushing it away 
from him, as we do. 
How the Indian Tanned Skins. 
In his collection Mr. Allen showed me some very fine 
specimens of genuine old Indian elk horn hide scrapers, 
of the sort the squaws used in dressing hides. These 
were cut out of a fork of the elk antler, having a handle 
about a foot long, the head being at a littlt> less than a 
right angle from the lower side of the handle, and of 4 Or 
5in. length. The head or blade was drawn to an edge at 
its lower end, and was usually tipped with a bit of strap 
iron or a piece of steel. The shoulder or corner of the 
tool was carefully rounded and usually polished, and the 
whole implement was often nicely worked out and pol- 
ished, so that it looked much like ivory. 
I remember I asked old Bill Hamilton how the Indians 
used to dress the buffalo skins, and he explained to me 
that the main secret of their excellent tan lay in the 
steady and skillful use of this same inefficient-looking tool 
in the hands of the squa ws. 
"The squaw would first tack out the hide on the 
ground, flesh side up," said Uncle Bill (Mr. Allen and I 
saw our Sioux have a beef hide stretched out near the 
tepee in the same way); "and she would first go over it 
and get off all the shreds of flesh she could, Then as the 
hide began to dry she'would'go'at it with this little hoe. 
She stood right on top of the hide, and stooped over, 
hoeing between her feet. The handle of the scraper was 
held in the right hand, and the left hand was pressed on 
this rounded shoulder, to"* press the edge down hard on 
the skin. The squaw hacked and scraped away in this 
way, and kept on at it till she broke up the inner fiber of 
the hide. Then sometimes she would take up the hide, 
loosening the edge and holding a fold between her knees, 
while she stood on it with her feet. Then she would hoe 
and scrape away at the fold of the hide. It was mostly 
a matter of hard work. Sometimes in softening a hide 
they dragged it back and forward over the limb of a tree, 
just as a tanner usps his beam, you know. They didn't 
put much on a hide except work. Sometimes they used 
brains, and sometimes they made a sort of grease by boil- 
ing up brains, marrow, and bits of the dried fleshings 
taken from other hides. That little squaw hoe, though, 
was what did the business. A good robe dresser could 
take that little awkward looking tool, with no edge at all 
on it to speak of, and pare a thick buffalo hide down till 
it was white and thin as paper, and it would be the same 
thickness all over, too." 
Wouldn't Do To-Day. 
So much for the Indian weapon par excellence, and the 
Indian tool of like rank. I looked at these old-time things 
with an interest I never felt when seeing them in 
museums. I seemed to be getting closer to their idea, 
here on the ground where they were made and used, in 
the West that now is of the past. I looked at their bows, 
their arrows, their shields, their quivers, their ineffectual 
stone war clubs, which I shouldn't think would scare any- 
body so very much, th^y are so absurd looking. Well- 
a-dav, these things will hardly do in competition with 
the little bullet not so big as a lead pencil, that kills a man 
two or three miles from the man who speeds it on its 
trackless way. 
All About Sinew. 
All these old-time bows had the sinew bowstrings. And 
this reminds me of what another old-time friend of mine, 
Col. J. Ishara Allen, or "Ike Allen," above mentioned, has 
lately told about some of the things the Indians used to do 
with sinew. In the issue of the American Anthropologist 
for April, 1894, Col. Allen has the following, all too brief, 
on this verv subject. He handed me the page when I 
saw him. It reads as follows: 
Aboriginal Use of Sinbw. — The aborigines of America put sinew 
to a verv great number of us^s for which it is peculiarly adapted by 
its flexibility- lightness, great strength and durability, and employ it in 
a variety of forms and sizes, In the making of clothing for men and 
horses, in the fabrication of weapons, including clubs, bows, arrows, 
etc , in the building of lodges, and for domestic and many other pur- 
poses its use is universal. For bow-strings and rough sewing the 
sinew of the buffalo is preferred as being coarser in texture, that of 
the elk being next in favor for these uses. The sinews of the deer, 
the antelope, the mountain sheep, and the mountain-lion are also in 
high favor, that of the mountain-lion being considered the finest and 
most durable. The sinew is prepared for use by first removing all 
adhering flesh with the back of a knife. It is then stretched on a 
board or lodge pole and left to dry for an hour or so preparatory to 
the separation of the fibers or threads by twisting in the hands. By 
the same similar twisting motion and by pulling the fiber can be 
extended to a reasonable length. Cords or small ropes are made by 
twisting many fibers together between two forked sticks fastened on 
the ground and during the process rubbing with thin skins of t he elk 
and deer to soften them. The largest cord I have seen made in this 
manner was one-fourth of an inch in diameter. To prepare it for sew- 
ing the sinew is wet and at th« needle end rollpd"on the knee with the 
palua of the hand to a flue hard point like that of a shopmaker's bristle. 
As suggested, the sinews are made sufficiently fine for use in fixing 
the guiding feathers and fastening the iron or flint heads of arrows 
and in the wrappings of clubs, etc. Formerly the awl used in sewing 
was of bone taken from the leg of the eagle. This has been displaced 
by the common sailor's needle. The over-stltch is that most com- 
monly employed in aboriginal sewing. 
Modern Indians No Good. 
I imagine the old-time Indians were up in their native 
arts better than the Indians of to-day. While Mr. Allen 
and I were visiting at the Sioux tepees, we broke one of 
our hemp bow strings. We gave it to our Sioux brave to 
mend, and he tried to splice it with a bit of sinew, but 
didn't do it worth a cent. He seemed to be more en- 
grossed in that red pipestone pipe than anything else. 
And I was a good deal interested in it too, and still look 
at it, as it hangs from the elk antlers in my office, with a 
good deal of interest, though I am expecting to be told by 
an expert that this pipe is modern and civilized in manu- 
facture and so no good. It has a section of handle made 
of the red pipt stone, as well as the bowl, and this section 
was fitted to the connecting reed by means of a bushing 
of red calico. This latter I think my Sioux man swiped 
from the skirt of Mary, the moccasin-maker. Sweet 
Marie was lying with her back to the flap when we called 
on her, and though we spoke sweetly to her and praised 
the washta pappoose we saw running around outside, 
Marie refused to be jolly boy and come out and talk with 
us. If anybody should come into this office and find me 
dressed up in war paint and a buckskin shirt, I beg he will 
not be alarmed. I shall be only celebrating. I gave this 
Sioux sweet Marie an order for a hunting shirt, but she 
only works when she feels like it, and as the shirt has not 
arrived, I am disposed to think Marie has not yet corao 
out of the lodge. 
"West of the River." 
It was interesting enough, here on the borderland of the 
old and the new, at the edge of that great and unknown 
country of whirh the old-timers once spoke with pride as 
"vVest of the River." But it is all of the past, now. 
There is no actual West any more. Mr. Allen told me of 
some very amusing things which he has seen happen 
there at Mandan by virtue of certain tenderfoot ignorance 
of the above fact. Every once in a while, he says, even 
yet there appears at Mandan some tenderfoot rigged out 
in story book fashion, ready for wild adventures in the 
West. We read about these blooming idiots, and it seems 
hard to believe that they actually exist, but they do. My 
friend told me that about a couple of years ago one of 
these things got off the train at Mandan. He was gotten 
up in the regulation style, wide hat, corduroy clothes, 
heavy top boots, bright new belt, little pistol and big 
hunting knife — the kind you see in stores and nowhere 
else, kept exclusively for the tenderfoot trade, and good 
only to open tin cans with. This fellow got off and posed 
around for the people to get a look at him — and they all 
looked. He didn't talk much, only to ask where there 
were any Indians and bears. At length some one asked 
him: 
"What part of the States are you from, stranger? - ' 
This offended him, and he straightened himself up and 
said, pompously: 
"My home is in the Rockies!" 
At this everybody laughed a-plenty; so after awhile 
the wild man went up to the depot and sat down, and 
took off one of his boots, which was skinning his heel 
some. 
A Jersey City Scout. 
One time some of the Maudon boys just for fun set a 
couple of tenderfeet to hunting deer in the wild rose 
bushes just back of the waterworks. Th^y didn't get 
any, but declared they saw plenty of sign. Mr. Allen 
showed me the picture of a Jersey City wild man scout, 
Bill Germayne by name — I think he lately died. The 
picture showed "scout" Germayne in beaded buckskin, 
long hair, goatee and all that sort of thing, but the history 
of the scout wasn't written on it. The facts were, Bill 
Germayne got stuck on the scout business (he was an ex- 
hibition rifle shooter, or something of the sort), and he 
started West for blood and glory. When he got to the 
edge of the Yellowstone Park he went broke and couldn't 
get back home. About then along came a party of 
foreign Dutch dignitaries, who wanted to get a guide 
through the Park, and this was where Bill's buckskin 
shirt got in its deadly work. He had never been in the 
Park in his life, but he was broke and needed funds, so 
he offered himself as guide. The foreign dignitaries were 
a trifle scared for fear he might break out, but they just 
chanced it, and employed him, they furnishing every- 
thing. And Bill — well. Bill just followed the roads, so he 
got through all right That gave him his start in the 
scout business, and after that he wore a few more beads 
and fringes I hope Sioux sweet Marie is going to put 
plenty of fringe on my new shirt, for I may need it for 
something of this kind some day. 
Plenty of White Deer. 
There is a notion prevalent that albino deer is very rare; 
but the article can be had if wanted. At the taxidermist 
shop of Chas. Emsley, at Missoula. Mont., I saw two 
albino white-tail deer, pure white, nicely mounted. Mr. 
Emsley has also the skin of a two-year-old buck, pure 
white, and he latelv had another albino offered him from 
Trenton, Maine. In Mr. Allen's collect on at Mandan, 
N. D , I saw a fine specimen of white deer. It came from 
Cable, Wis., in December of 1892. Ther« are two good 
specimens of albino deer mounted, in Sfc. Paul, to-day, 
and I know of a fine one in Chicago, which I mentioned 
some years ago in these columns. 
Among other curiosities I saw at Mandan was a fine 
group of a mountain lion and four spotted cubs. These 
came from Boulder, Col. , and they make an interesting 
composition. Mr. Allen also had in his collection a black - 
tail deer head which measured 88^in. across the widest 
spread of the antlers, a phenomenal one. I saw also 
seven entire skins of cow buffalo, which Mr. Allen says 
he has had eight years, they being from the last of the 
Panhandle herd. There was a five-year old bull head, 
said to be from Charlie Allards Flathead reservation 
herd, and five other buffalo heads, the whole skin of a 
three-year-old buffalo cow, and entire skins of about all 
the great North American animals except the musk ox. 
Plenty of Buffalo Heads and Robes. 
I ran across plenty of buffalo robes in the Northwest, 
and I believe 50 to 100 robes could be bought in St. Paul 
without trouble. Many of these are pretty fresh, and 
there are some very fresh heads, too. A buffalo head is 
not so hard to buy, if you want it. The Babcock Hard- 
ware Co., of Billings, lately advertised quite a number in 
Forest and Stream, but these were not Park heads. At 
Missoula, Mont., Emslay was mounting a fine buffalo 
head, said just lately to have been killed out of the Allard 
herd. This bull had been shot square between the eyes. 
He had been acting sick, and when killed it was found 
he had lately been shot behind the ear with a .32 bullet. 
It was thought some of the boys may have done this, 
because the bull wouldn't drive well in the herding opera- 
tions. 
Heads, Horns and Skeleton. 
Speaking of hides, heads and horns and of the past and 
present and that sort of thing, reminds me of an old, old, 
weather-beaten buffalo skull I picked up near Columbus, 
Mont., on the Yellowstone Valley, last April. This old- 
timer was no doubt killed by the Indians, for the frontal 
bone is broken in, as if it had been opened for the brains. 
From tip to tip of its weathered horns it measures 27fin. T 
and competent judges say that is very wide. The frontal 
bone is also very wide. This old relic lay on a meadow 
in full sight of the road, and Mr. Meigs, one of our fish- 
ing party up the Stillwater, said he had seen it there for 
years. It is now on the wall of the Forest and Stream 
Western office, in company with the Crow arrows and 
the Sioux pipe. 
Mr. Meigs, seeing me kindly disposed toward skulls and 
bones, promised to send me a lovely Indian skull, which 
he said had been lying for a long time on one of the 
islands of the Yellowstone. "It has a bullet hole right 
square in the middle of the forehead," said he, and added 
meditatively, "I saw a fellow riding a horse around here 
that looked a good deal like the horse that same Indian 
used to ride." As I still remain shy of that particular 
skull, I beg to remind Mr. Meigs of his promise to go and 
hunt it up. I would run that skull in on my grandchil- 
dren in great ahape, if I had any. 
Skis. 
I was interested recently by reading the comments of 
Mr T. S. Van Dyke on skis and ski matters. I find it diffi- 
cult to reconcile a great many of Mr. Van Dyk. 's ideas 
with those current in the country where I learned the 
little I have of ski knowledge. For instance, Mr. Van 
Dyke says a 6ft. ski will do for ordinary work as a "cross 
country or traveling shoe." If he would appear at Fort 
Yellowstone with so short a ski as that, he would be 
thoroughly laughed at as a tenderfoot, nor do I believe 
that so short a shoe would do at all in the soft unpacked 
snow of that country, where even the 10ft. skis sometimes 
sunk 8in. deep into the snow; 8ft. is about the shortest 
sM which is used in that country. They run from that 
to 10 and even 12ft., although the latter is quite the 
extreme. Larsen, our Scandinavian ski running private, 
told me that in the old country he had seen a ski used as 
long as 16ft., but this was usually in conjunction with a 
.short ski on the other foot, so that the runner could turn 
.-■bout easily. It is a well known fact that with a ski and 
a half a man can make a pretty stagger at getting alorg. 
Mr. Van Dyke's appliances for steadying the heel, by 
