the west, my uncle went down to the river,
and looked along the bank and the mud-bars, trying to learn whether any
animals had been to the water; and when he saw tracks he pointed them out
to me. "This," he said, "is the track of a deer. You see that it has been
going slowly. It is feeding, because it does not go straight ahead, but
goes now in one direction, and then in another, and back a little, not
seeming to have any purpose in its wandering about, and here," showing me a
place where a plant had been bitten off, "is where it was eating. If we
follow along, soon we will see its tracks in the mud by the river." It was
as he had said, and soon, in a little sand-bar, we saw the place where the
animal had stopped. "You see," he said, "this was a big deer; here are his
tracks; here he stopped at the edge of the water to drink; and then he went
on across the river, for there are no tracks leading back to the bank. You
will notice that he was walking; he was not frightened; he did not see nor
smell any enemies."

Further up the river, on a sand-bar, he showed me the tracks of antelope,
where the old ones had walked along quietly, and other smaller tracks,
where the sand had been thrown up; and these marks, he said, were made by
the little kids, which were playing and running.

"Notice carefully," he said, "the tracks that you see, so that you will
remember them, and will know them again. The tracks made by the different
animals are not all alike. The antelope's hoof is sharp-pointed in front.
Notice, too, that when his foot sinks in the mud there is no mark behind
his footprint; while behind the footprint of a deer there are two marks, in
soft ground, made by the little hoofs that the deer has on his foot."

We kept on further up the river, and when night came we stopped, and sat
down in some bushes. All day long we had seen nothing that we could kill;
but from a fold in his robe my uncle drew some dried meat, and we built a
little fire of dried willow brush, that would make no smoke, and over this
we roasted our meat, and ate; and my uncle talked to me again, saying: "My
son, I like to have you come out with me, and travel about over the
country. You have no father to teach you, and I am glad to take you with
me, and to tell you the things that I know. It is a good thing to be a
member of our tribe, and it is a good thing to belong to a good family in
that tribe. You must always remember that you come of good people. You