your entire foot as a base upon
which to rest, the body is more easily balanced and the foot less likely
to slip. When people slip and fall on the ice, it is because the edge of
the heel strikes the ice first and slides. The whole foot on the ice
would not slip in the same way, and very often not at all.

Trailing does not consist merely in walking along a path or in making
one for yourself. It has a larger meaning than that and embraces various
lines of outdoor life, while it always presupposes movement of some
kind. In one sense going on the trail means going on the hunt. You may
go on the trail for birds, for animals, for insects, plants, or flowers.
You may trail a party of friends ahead of you, or follow a deer to its
drinking-place; and in all these cases you must look for the signs of
that which you seek.

=Footprints or Tracks=

In trailing animals look for footprints in soft earth, sand, or snow.
The hind foot of the muskrat will leave a print in the mud like that of
a little hand, and with it will be the fore-foot print, showing but four
short fingers, and generally the streaks where the hard tail drags
behind. Fig. 4 shows what these look like. If you are familiar with the
dog track you will know something about the footprints of the fox, wolf,
and coyote, for they are much alike. Fig. 9 gives a clean track of the
fox, but often there is the imprint of hairs between and around the
toes. A wolf track is larger and is like Fig. 8. The footprint of a deer
shows the cloven hoof, with a difference between the buck's and the
doe's. The doe's toes are pointed and, when not spread, the track is
almost heart-shaped (Fig. 7), while the buck has blunter, more rounded
toes, like Fig. 10. The two round lobes are at the back of the foot,
the other end points in the direction the deer has taken. Sometimes you
will find deer tracks with the toes spread wide apart. That means the
animal has been running. All animals' toes spread more or less when they
run. A bear track is like Fig. 11, but a large bear often leaves other
evidences of his presence than his footprints. He will frequently turn a
big log over or tear one open in his search for ants. He will stand on
his hind legs and gnaw a hole in a dead tree or tall stump, and a
bee-tree will bear the marks of his climbing on its trunk. It is
interesting to find a tree with the scars of bruin's feet, made
prominent by small knobs where his claws have sunk into the bark. Eac