es 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, arsenical 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 hitherto 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,