Missing it will bring you to ever-narrowing ledges,
until at last you end at a precipice, and there is no
room to turn your horses around for the return. Some
of the great box canons thousands of feet deep are
practicable by but one passage,--and that steep and
ingenious in its utilization of ledges, crevices, little
ravines, and "hog's-backs"; and when the only
indications to follow consist of the dim vestiges left by
your last predecessor, perhaps years before, the affair
becomes one of considerable skill and experience.
You must be able to pick out scratches made by
shod hoofs on the granite, depressions almost filled
in by the subsequent fall of decayed vegetation,
excoriations on fallen trees. You must have the sense
to know AT ONCE when you have overrun these indications,
and the patience to turn back immediately to
your last certainty, there to pick up the next clue,
even if it should take you the rest of the day. In
short, it is absolutely necessary that you be at least
a persistent tracker.

Parenthetically; having found the trail, be charitable.
Blaze it, if there are trees; otherwise "monument"
it by piling rocks on top of one another. Thus will
those who come after bless your unknown shade.

Third, you must know horses. I do not mean that
you should be a horse-show man, with a knowledge
of points and pedigrees. But you must learn exactly
what they can and cannot do in the matters of carrying