An excellent ferry-boat may be made from a green or soaked hide of ox or buffalo, or better still, from two or more hides. You will generally find willows growing on the banks of the streams; gather some of the smaller ones, sharpen the butts and drive them into the ground, so as to form an oval figure of the size of your intended boat. Then bring the tops together, weave slender willow rods among the larger ones till the structure resembles a basket with a round bottom, and have a specially strong willow running around all of them near the ground, and firmly fastened, to make the gunwale of your boat. If your boat is made of one hide stretch it over the basket and sew it to the large rod around the top, and let the whole thing stand a few hours in the sun to get dry; then cut off the rods where they enter the ground and you have a boat that will carry four or five hundred pounds with ease. For a larger boat, with two or more hides, you want a more pretentious frame, a stout pole for a keel, and two smaller poles for gunwales. This water vehicle is known on the plains as a _bull-boat_, and can be easily constructed, provided the traveler has a supply of willows, some green or soaked hides, and a fair amount of common sense. Where a traveler expects to encounter streams that cannot be forded he would do well to carry two or three dried hides, and then he will have the material for covering a bull-boat always at hand.
While we are speaking of hides, another use of them may be mentioned. It often happens that emigrants, or settlers in a new country, wish to salt a quantity of beef or other meat but have no cask or other receptacle in which to place it. In this emergency dig a hole in the ground, of such dimensions that the hide of the slaughtered animal will just line it; then place the hide in the hole, with the flesh side up, fasten the edges to the ground with wooden pegs, and you have a salting cask that you may use, _sans peur et sans reproache_. An animal's hide is also useful to bake him in, and in this way: Skin and dress your game and then sew what you intend to bake into the hide. Build a good fire in a hole in the ground with a sort of rude oven of stones around it, and keep it going till the ground and stones are hot. Now sweep out the ashes, throw in your roasting piece, cover it with dry or green leaves, put back the hot embers as quickly as possible, and then continue the fire long enough to cook the meat beneath it. The writer has practiced this form of cookery on several occasions and found the result very satisfactory.