THE LION PLAYS SOFT PEDAL 115 



forty feet, and circling to within fifty feet of its 

 former trail leaped off in the snow and galloped 

 away toward the southeast. 



This ruse had delayed and confused the dogs 

 for more than an hour. But they had again 

 found the trail and within a quarter of a mile 

 the lion had climbed a tree. 



The fox, lion, and many other animals realize 

 that they leave a tell-tale scent. But the grizzly 

 is the only animal which appears to know that he 

 leaves visible tracks which tell his presence and 

 which reveal the direction he is travelling. 



The following day, about four miles from the 

 scene, I came upon a lion track that appeared 

 comparatively fresh, and along it I trailed -on 

 snowshoes. These tracks led around openings 

 in the woods, over cliffs, and into a canon. After 

 following them nearly all day I came to where they 

 were joined with snowshoe tracks, which proved 

 to be mine of the day before. All day I had 

 been trailing a dead lion. This did not matter, as 

 I was only reading the stories in the tracks, but 

 I had badly misjudged the age of them. 



Another time a lion track led me along a wild- 

 life trail to the shelf of a cliff about ten feet above 

 the snow. The trail was between this cliff and 

 another rock about twenty feet away, but deep- 

 drifted snow had caused the trailers to edge close 

 to the rocks on which a lion was concealed. 



