6 WHITE AND INDIAN TRACKERS. 



educated scholar, living in the midst of an ultra- 

 civilization, fails, because he has never had to study 

 the details of a landscape where human landmarks 

 have never been set and drifts he knows not whither, 

 like a sailor at sea, in thick weather, without a com- 

 pass. The sense of direction, and the faculty of 

 knowing 1 where one is, is quite as much a matter 

 of education as the acquirement of any other branch 

 of knowledge. 



Experience, however, shows that it is quite possible 

 for the white man to learn all the arts of the Indian, 

 With practice and application he may gradually acquire 

 the art of knowing how to hold his course through 

 an unknown land, and to follow the trails or marks 

 left by game or hostile natives, with all the unerring 

 certainty of the Red man. In such cases his superior 

 intelligence (should he adopt the hunter's life) will 

 undoubtedly in the end enable him to beat the In- 

 dian at his own game, though it may be quite true 

 that, as a rule, few white men have ever attained 

 to that degree of proficiency. Still we have known 

 such men. 



Those whose researches may have carried them much 

 into the early literature of America, and the history 

 of the settlement of the New World by the European 

 invaders, will be conversant with the all-powerful in- 

 fluence which the attractions of the wilderness developed 

 among those who emigrated to seek a home in those 

 Western Wilds. 



The numbers of those who, tired of the dull routine 

 of existence in the settlements, have adopted the 

 wandering life of the hunter, have always been great. 

 Many of these men became to all intents and purposes 



