ising it again into position.

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Notes

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Notes

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CHAPTER IV

TRACKS, TRAILING AND SIGNALING

_By Ernest Thompson Seton, Chief Scout_

"I wish I could go West and join the Indians so that I should have no
lessons to learn," said an unhappy small boy who could discover no
atom of sense or purpose in any one of the three R's.

"You never made a greater mistake," said the scribe. "For the young
Indians have many hard lessons from their earliest day--hard lessons
and hard punishments. With them the dread penalty of failure is 'go
hungry till you win,' and no harder task have they than their reading
lesson. Not twenty-six characters are to be learned in this exercise,
but one thousand; not clear straight print are they, but dim,
washed-out, crooked traces; not in-doors on comfortable chairs, with a
patient teacher always near, but out in the forest, often alone and in
every kind of weather, they slowly decipher their letters and read
sentences of the oldest writing on earth--a style so old that the
hieroglyphs of Egypt, the cylinders of Nippur, and the drawings of the
cave men are as things of to-day in comparison--the one universal
script--the tracks in the dust, mud, or snow.

"These are the inscriptions that every hunter must learn to read
infallibly, and be they strong or faint, straight or crooked, simple
or overwritten with many a puzzling, diverse phrase, he must decipher
and follow them swiftly, unerringly if there is to be a successful
ending to the hunt which provides his daily food.

"This is the reading lesson of the young Indians, and it is a style
that will never become out of date. The naturalist also must acquire
some measure of proficiency in the ancient art. Its usefulness is
unending to the student of wild life; without it he would know little
of the people of the wood."

There Are Still Many Wild Animals

It is a remarkable fact that there are always more wild animals about
than any but the expert has an idea of. For {188} example, there are,
within twenty miles of New York City, fully fifty different kinds--not
counting birds, reptiles, or fishes--one quarter of which at least are
abundant. Or more particularly within the limits of Greater New York
there are at least a dozen species of wild beasts, half of which are
quite common.

"Then how is it that we never see any?" is the first question of the
incredulous. The answer is: Long ago the beasts learned