IN QUEST OF TREASURE 61 



and without losing the least headway or causing a moment's 

 delay in his pace, he would continue walking, but now in a 

 backward direction, long enough to give himself ample time to 

 scrutinize his distant trail. By manoeuvring thus, he could 

 study his pursuers without arousing their suspicion, for whether 

 they were animals or men, the chances would be — if they were 

 some distance away — that they would never notice that he 

 had tm-ned about, and was now inspecting his own tracks. 



As regards trailing game, whether large or small, he cautioned 

 me to watch my quarry carefully, and instantly to become rigid 

 at the first sign that the game was about to turn round or 

 raise its head to peer in my direction. More than that, I 

 should not only remain motionless while the animal was gazing 

 toward me, but I should assume at once some form that sug- 

 gested the character of the surrounding trees or bushes or rocks. 

 For example, among straight-boled, perfectly vertical trees, I 

 should stand upright; among uprooted trees, I should assume 

 the character of an overturned stump, by standing with in- 

 clined body, bent legs, and arms and fingers thrust out at such 

 angles as to suggest the roots of a fallen tree. And he added 

 that if I doubted the wisdom of such an act, I should test it at a 

 distance of fifty or a hundred paces, and prove the difficulty 

 of detecting a man who assumed a characteristic landscape 

 pose among trees or rocks. That was years before the World 

 War had brought the word camouflage into general use; for as a 

 matter of fact, the forest Indians had been practising camou- 

 flage for centuries and, no doubt, that was one reason why many 

 of the Indians in the Canadian Expeditionary Force did such 

 remarkable work as snipers. 



INDIANS IN THE WORLD WAR 



For instance: Sampson Comego destroyed twenty-eight of 

 the enemy. PhiUp Macdonald killed forty, Johnny Ballantyne 



