but meanwhile we built a more or less open faced permanent
camp and Big Pete initiated me into mysteries of real woodcraft, for it
was up to us now to live on the land, so to speak.

Although hard usage had made havoc with my tailormade clothes, neither
time nor the elements seemed to affect the personal appearance of my big
companion; his buckskin suit was apparently as clean and fresh as it was
on the day I first met him. There was no magic in this. Big Pete knew
how to clamber all day through a windfall without leaving the greater
part of his clothes on the branches, a feat few hunters and no
tenderfoot have yet been able to accomplish.

As I have already said, Pete was a dude, but he was what might be called
a self-perpetuating dude, who never ran to seed no matter how long he
might be separated from the city tailor shops, for Pete was his own
tailor, barber and valet, and the wilderness supplied the material for
his costume.

In the camp he was as busy as an old housewife, and occupied his leisure
time mending, stitching and darning. Many a morning my own toilet
consisted of a face wash at the spring, but my guide seldom failed to
spend as much time prinking as if he expected distinguished visitors!

Instead of "Tenderfoot," Big Pete now called me "Le-loo," which I
understand is Chinook for wolf and I took so much pride in my promotion
that I would not have changed clothes with the Prince of Wales; I
gloried in my wild, unkempt appearance!

Nevertheless, Big Pete announced that he was the Hy-as-ty-ee (big boss)
and he forthwith declared that my costume was unsuitable for the
approaching cold weather. There was no disputing that Big Pete was
Hy-as-ty-ee and I agreed to wear whatever clothes he should make for me,
and can say with no fear of dispute that if that ancient chump, Robinson
Crusoe, had had a Big Pete for a partner in place of a man Friday, he
would have never made himself his outlandish goatskin clothes and a
clumsy umbrella.

From a cache in the rocks Pete brought forth a miscellaneous lot of
trappers' stores, bone needles made from the splints of deer's legs,
elk's teeth with holes bored through them, and odds and ends of all
kinds.

Among his stuff was a supply of salt-petre and alum, and this was
evidently the material for which he was searching for he at once
preceeded to make a mixture of two parts salt-petre to one of alum and
applied the pulverized compound to the fleshy side of the skins,