"Seasoned Ash twenty-five inches long, split to three-eighths of an
inch thick, hot glue, and turkey-wing feathers."

"I'll get the feathers and let you do the rest," said Sam, producing
a bundle of turkey-wings, laid away as stove-dusters, and then belied
his own statement by getting a block of Ash and splitting it up,
halving it each time till he had a pile of two dozen straight sticks
about three-quarters of an inch thick.

Yan took one and began with his knife to whittle it down to proper
size and shape, but Sam said, "I can do better than that," then took
the lot to the workbench and set to work with a smoothing plane. Yan
looked worried and finally said:

"Injuns didn't have planes."

"Nor jack-knives neither," was the retort.

That was true, and yet somehow Yan's ideal that he hankered after
was the pre-Columbian Indian, the one who had no White-man's help or
tools.

"It seems to me it'd be more Injun to make these with just what we get
in the woods. The Injuns didn't have jack-knives, but they had sharp
flints in the old days."

"Yan, you go ahead with a sharp stone. You'll find lots on the road if
you take off your shoes and walk barefoot--awful sharp; an' I'll go
ahead with the smoothing plane an' see who wins."