HOW TO MAKE A POWDER HORN

Powder horns were generally made from either cow or buffalo horn. The cow horn is a beige or cream color, the buffalo horn, a deep ebony color.

Begin by hack-sawing the base of the horn; removing the rough part of the horn where it had attached to the animal’s head. Make the cut as near as possible to the perpendicular axis to the horn.

Next, rasp off the dry, scaly material that usually covers the lower or wider part of the horn. Finish this with a file and sandpaper, removing any rasp marks or gouges, working this until you have attained a uniform smoothness.

Turn now to drilling the spout hole. In order to prepare the end of the horn for drilling, cut off just enough of the tip so that there is sufficient thickness around the intended hole to seat the plug at the pouring end.

Drill the hole taking care not to drill through the side of the horn.

Fashion the spout plug so that it fits snuggly into the hole.

Return now to the completion of the butt plug. Cut a piece of board conforming to the inside measurements of the butt of the horn. Test it by tapping it into place. If the horn is irregular, heat the end of the horn by submerging it in boiling water and working it until you have the desired shape.

Once the horn has cooled, cut out its center and glue this inner plug into place. This hole will allow the horn to be charged with gunpowder.

For the outer portion of the butt plug, cut another piece of wood just slightly larger than the inner plug, so that it caps and extends just over the edges of the butt of the horn.

On the inside of this cap, glue a piece of wood conforming in size to the cut-out center of the inner plug and glue it into place. The goal is to set so that the plug may be removed to charge the horn, but when in place, it creates an air-tight seal.

Bevel or sand the outer edges of the butt plug to conform to your own individual esthetic.

Polish and decorate the powder horn as you will.

HUNTING BIG GAME

THE BISON OR AMERICAN BUFFALO BY MAYNE REID

The bison—universally though wrongly called buffalo—is the largest ruminant indigenous to the Americas, and perhaps the most interesting animal in America. Its great size and strength—the prodigious numbers in which it was found; its peculiar habitat; the value of its flesh and hide to the hunter; the mode of its chase and capture; all these circumstances render the buffalo an interesting and highly-prized animal.

The appearance of the animal is well-known—the enormous head, with its broad triangular front, the conical hump on the shoulders, the small but brilliantly piercing eyes, the short black horns of crescent shape, the profusion of shaggy hair about the neck and foreparts of the body, the disproportioned bulk of the smaller hind-quarters, the short tail, with its tufted extremity. The hind-quarters are covered with a much shorter and smoother coat of hair, which adds to their apparent disproportion, and this, with the long hirsute covering of the breast, neck, hump, and shoulders, gives to the buffalo—especially when seen in a picture—a somewhat lion-like figure. The naked tail, with its tuft at the end, strengthens this similarity.

Some of these characteristics belong only to the bull. The cow is less shaggy in front, has a smaller head, a less fierce appearance, and is altogether more like the common black cattle.

The buffalo is of a dark brown color—sometimes nearly black—and sometimes of a burnt or liver hue; but this change depends on the season. The young coat of hair is darker, but changes as the season advances. In autumn it is nearly black, and then the coat of the animal has a shiny appearance; but as winter comes on and the hair lengthens, it becomes lighter and more bleached-like. In the early part of summer it has a yellowish brown hue and, at this time, with rubbing and wallowing, part of it has already come off, while large flakes hang ragged and loose from the flanks, ready at any moment to drop off.

In size, the American buffalo competes with the European species (Bos aurochs), now nearly extinct. These animals differ in shape considerably, but the largest individuals of each species would very nearly balance one another in weight. Either of them is equal in size and weight to the largest specimens of the common ox.

A full-grown buffalo-bull is six feet high at the shoulders, eight feet from the snout to the base of the tail, and will weigh about 1,500 pounds. The flesh of the buffalo is juicy and delicious, equal, indeed superior, to well-fed beef. It may be regarded as beef with a game flavor. Many people—trappers and hunters—prefer it to any other species of meat.

The flesh of the cow is more tender and savory than that of the bull; and in a hunt when “meat” is the object, the cow is selected as a mark for the arrow or bullet. The parts most esteemed are the tongue, the “hump-ribs” (the long spinous process of the first dorsal vertebra), and the marrow of the shank bones. “Boudins” (part of the intestines) are also favorite “tit-bits” among Indians and trappers.

The tongue, when dried, is superior to those of common beeves, and, indeed, the same may be said of the other parts, but there is a better and worse in buffalo-beef, according to the age and sex of the animal. “Fat cow” is a term for the superexcellent, and by “poor bull,” or “old bull,” is meant a very unpalatable article, only to be eaten by the hunter in times of necessity.

One of the most singular facts in relation to the buffalo is their enormous numbers. Nothing but the vast extent of their pasturage could have sustained such droves as have from time to time been seen. Thousands frequently feed together, and the plain for miles is often covered with a continuous drove. Sometimes they are seen strung out into a long column, passing from place to place, and roads exist made by them that resemble great highways. Sometimes these roads, worn by the rains, form great hollows that traverse the level plain, and they often guide the thirsty hunter in the direction of water.

Another curious fact about the buffalo is their habit of wallowing. The cause of this is unclear. It may be that they are prompted to it, as swine are, partly to cool their blood by bringing their bodies in contact with the colder earth, and partly to scratch themselves as other cattle do, and free their skins from the annoying insects and parasites that prey upon them. It must be remembered that in their pasturage no trees or “rubbing posts” are to be found, and in the absence of these they are compelled to resort to wallowing. They fling themselves upon their sides and, using their hunch and shoulder as a pivot, spin round and round for hours at a time. In this rotatory motion they aid themselves by using their legs freely. The earth becomes hollowed out and worn into a circular basin, often of considerable depth, and this is known as a “buffalo wallow.” Such curious circular concavities are seen wherever these animals range, sometimes grown over with grass, sometimes freshly hollowed out, and not infrequently containing water, with which the hunter assuages his thirst, and so, too, the buffalo themselves. This has led to the fanciful idea of the early explorers that there existed on the American Continent an animal that dug its own wells!

Buffalo hunting is not without peril. The hunter frequently risks his life; and numerous have been the fatal results of encounters with these animals. The bulls, when wounded, cannot be approached, even on horseback, without considerable risk. The buffalo runs with a gait apparently heavy and lumbering—first heaving to one side, then to the other, like a ship at sea; but this gait, although not equal in speed to that of a horse, is far too fast for a man on foot, and the swiftest runner, unless favored by a tree or some other object, will be surely overtaken, and either gored to death by the animal’s horns, or pounded to a jelly under its heavy hoofs.