306 Hunting Trips on the Prairie 



choose some prominent landmarks, and then should 

 learn how they look from different sides for they 

 will with difficulty be recognized as the same ob 

 jects, if seen from different points of view. If he 

 gets out of sight of these, he should choose another 

 to work back to, as a kind of halfway point; and so 

 on. He should keep looking back; it is wonderful 

 how different a country looks when following back 

 on one s trail. If possible, he should locate his 

 camp, in his mind, with reference to a line, and not 

 a point; he should take a river or a long ridge, for 

 example. Then at any time he can strike back to 

 this line and follow it up or down till he gets home. 

 If possible, I always spend the first day, when on 

 new ground, in hunting up-stream. Then, so long 

 as I am sure I do not wander off into the valleys 

 or creeks of another water-course, I am safe, for, 

 no matter on what remote branch, all I have to do 

 is to follow down-stream until I reach camp; while 

 if I was below camp, it would be difficult to tell 

 which fork to follow up every time the stream 

 branched. A man should always notice the posi 

 tion of the sun, the direction from which the wind 

 blows, the slope of the water-courses, prominent 

 features in the landscape, and so forth, and should 

 keep in mind his own general course; and he had 

 better err on the side of caution rather than on that 

 of boldness. Getting lost is very uncomfortable, 

 both for the man himself and for those who have 

 to break up their work and hunt for him. Deep 

 woods or perfectly flat, open country are almost 



