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The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure by Arthur Henry Howard Heming
page 51 of 368 (13%)
realize that some misfortune had befallen the hunter. The second man,
or follower, however, never blazes trees as he trails the first hunter,
but simply breaks off twigs or bends branches in the direction in which
he is going, so that should it be necessary that a third man should
also follow, he could readily distinguish the difference between the
two trails. If a hunter wishes to leave a good trail over a treeless
district, he, as far as possible, chooses soft ground and treads upon
his heels.

When a hunter is trailing an animal, he avoids stepping upon the
animal's trail, so that should it be necessary for him to go back and
re-trail his quarry, the animal's tracks shall not be obliterated. If,
in circling about his quarry, the hunter should happen to cut his own
trail, he takes great care to cut it at right angles, so that, should
he have to circle several times, he may never be at a loss to know
which was his original trail. If the hunter should wish to leave a
danger signal behind him, he will take two saplings, one from either
side of the trail, and twist them together in such a way that they
shall block the passage of the follower, requiring him to pause in
order to disentangle them or to pass around them; and if the hunter
were to repeat such a signal two or three times, it would signify that
the follower should use great caution and circle down wind in order to
still-hunt the hunter's trail in exactly the same way he would
still-hunt a moose. Then, again, if the hunter should wish to let the
follower know the exact time of day he had passed a certain spot, he
would draw on the earth or snow a bow with an arrow placed at right
angles to the bow, but pointing straight in the direction where the sun
had been at that precise moment.


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