On the northern range, skins were not folded until the time came to haul them in.  Then the hunter repaired to the scene of his winter’s work, with a wagon surmounted by a hay-rack (or something like it), usually drawn by four horses.  As the skins were gathered up they were folded once, lengthwise down the middle, with the hair inside.  Sometimes as many as 100 skins were hauled at one load by four horses.

On one portion of the northern range the classification of buffalo peltries was substantially as follows:  Under the head of robes was included all cow skins taken during the proper season, from one year old upward, and all bull skins from one to three years old.  Bull skins over three years of age were classed as hides, and while the best of them were finally tanned and used as robes, the really poor ones were converted into leather.  The large robes, when tanned, were used very generally throughout the colder portions of North America as sleigh robes and wraps, and for bedding in the regions of extreme cold.  The small robes, from the young animals, and likewise many large robes, were made into overcoats, at once the warmest and the most cumbersome that ever enveloped a human being.  Thousands of old bull robes were tanned with the hair on, and the body portions were made into overshoes, with the woolly hair inside—­absurdly large and uncouth, but very warm.

I never wore a pair of buffalo overshoes without being torn by conflicting emotions—­mortification at the ridiculous size of my combined foot-gear, big boots inside of huge overshoes, and supreme comfort derived from feet that were always warm.

Besides the ordinary robe, the hunters and fur buyers of Montana recognized four special qualities, as follows: 

The “beaver robe,” with exceedingly fine, wavy fur, the color of a beaver, and having long, coarse, straight hairs coming through it.  The latter were of course plucked out in the process of manufacture.  These were very rare.  In 1882 Mr. James McNaney took one, a cow robe, the only one out of 1,200 robes taken that season, and sold it for $75, when ordinary robes fetched only $3.50.

The “black-and-tan robe” is described as having the nose, flanks, and inside of fore legs black-and-tan (whatever that may mean), while the remainder of the robe is jet black.

A “buckskin robe” is from what is always called a “white buffalo,” and is in reality a dirty cream color instead of white.  A robe of this character sold in Miles City in 1882 for $200, and was the only one of that character taken on the northern range during that entire winter.  A very few pure white robes have been taken, so I have been told, chiefly by Indians, but I have never seen one.

A “blue robe” or “mouse-colored (?) robe” is one on which the body color shows a decidedly bluish cast, and at the same time has long, fine fur.  Out of his 1,200 robes taken in 1882, Mr. McNaney picked out 12 which passed muster as the much sought for blue robes, and they sold at $16 each.