WILD ANIMALS AND MEN 249 



have left absolutely no visible sign of a trail, and when that 

 dog will cross that great unbroken expanse and enter the woods 

 on the far shore exactly where the trail appears in sight again, 

 though no stick or stone or any other visible thing marks the 

 spot — it does seem a marvellous feat. But it is done, not by 

 sight, sound, or scent, but by touch — the feel of the foot. In 

 winter time man, too, follows a trail in the same way, not- 

 withstanding that he is generally handicapped by a pair of 

 snowshoes. Some unseen trails are not hard to follow — 

 even a blind man could follow them. It is done this way : 



Suppose you come to a creek that you want to cross, yet you 

 can see no way of doing it, for there is nothing in sight — neither 

 log nor bridge — spanning the river. But suppose someone 

 tells you that, though the water is so muddy that you cannot see 

 an inch into it, there is a flat log spanning the creek about six 

 inches below the surface, and that if you feel about with your 

 foot you can find it. Then, of course, you would make your 

 way across by walking on the unseen log, yet knowing all the 

 time that if you made a misstep you would plunge into the 

 stream. You would do it by the feel of the foot. It is just 

 the same in following an unseen trail in the snow — it lies hard- 

 packed beneath the surface, just as the log lay unseen in the 

 river. What a pity it is that the writers of northern tales so 

 rarely understand the life they have made a specialty of de- 

 picting. 



But to return to the caribou we were trailing, and also to 

 make a long hunt short — for you now know most of the inter- 

 esting points in the sport — I must tell you that we spent a full 

 day and a night before we came up with them. And that night, 

 too, a heavy fall of snow added to our trouble, but it made the 

 forest more beautiful than ever. It was after sunrise when we 

 picked up fresh tracks. A heavy rime was falling, but though 

 it screened all distant things, we espied five caribou that were 

 still lingering on a lake, over which the main band had passed. 



