One of the most difficult things to accomplish in trailing is to learn to
correctly ascertain the age of a trail.

If a track is very fresh, it will show moisture when the earth is turned
up, which in a few hours becomes dry. If in the sand, little particles
will be found running into the impression left in the ground. Should rain
have fallen since the track was made, the sharp edges will have been
washed away. The condition of the ordure also furnishes an indication.

I once employed as scout, a Mexican, who could tell by a single glance at
a trail, by what tribe it had been made, their number, its age, and in
fact every particular concerning the party, as truthfully as though he
had seen them.

We were one time following an Apache trail, when we came to a ledge of
bare rock. I examined it carefully, and could detect no mark of any kind;
but the Mexican led us across as easily as though it had been a beaten
path, without even once hesitating a moment, during the two miles over
which it extended.

When I asked him what he saw that indicated the course of the trail, he
showed me that the surface of the rock was covered with a very fine, dry
moss, that, with the closest scrutiny, bore evidence of having been
pressed by the foot: so slight was the impression made, it would have
escaped the notice of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons; yet his
keen eyes detected every footprint as plainly as though it had been made
in the grass.

If a trail is for any reason lost, an expert will easily recover it by
following for a time its general direction and watching the formation of