274 THE FORESTS OF CANADA. 



marked, too, that I almost invariably trend to the right, 

 not to the left , and, on comparing notes with other " bush 

 whackers," I find that I am not singular in this respect. 

 Can it be that the left is generally the better leg of the 

 two, and takes imperceptibly the longer stride ? The 

 wind is a capricious guide to the lost woodsman, and the 

 trees are not to be depended upon, although in exposed 

 situations six out of seven incline to the eastward, owing 

 to the prevalence of westerly weather. There is nd time 

 when one is so likely to get lost as when hunting fresh 

 tracks. The attention is so much absorbed by the sport, 

 that a man is particularly liable to lose his reckoning, and 

 to find himself at sundown far from his camping ground. 

 On these occasions it is the better plan to make oneself as 

 comfortable as possible for the night, for when darkness 

 sets in walking is simply impossible, and ordinarily it is 

 no great hardship to pass a night in the woods. A man 

 should never be without matches, and firewood can always 

 be procured. When matches are lost or wet, a little bit 

 of the lining of a coat or of a pocket-handkerchief, rubbed 

 with powder and fired out of a gun into a dry, rotten 

 stump, forms a substitute. Without means of kindling a 

 fire it is a serious matter Jo be lost in the woods, and I am 

 thankful to say I have never been in that difficulty. Old 

 lumber roads are most mischievous, and, when lost, it is 

 better to have nothing to say to them ; they twist about 

 in every direction, and after following one for a couple of 

 miles it is heartbreaking to find that it leads to an old 

 pine stump, and there ends. 



The idea that Indians never get lost in the woods is 

 erroneous. No man in the world without the aid of a 



