TRACKING ON BARE GROUND. 147 



an animal as light and as small-hoofed as a deer fast 

 enough to be of any avail; and often where it can be 

 done it is too tedious even for the Indian. He rarely 

 tracks a single deer on most kinds of bare ground un- 

 less it is wounded or deer are very scarce. Where a 

 single track goes through heavy timber; where the 

 ground is covered with dry dead leaves or dry dead 

 grass; where it is very dry and hard, or is stony or 

 frozen ; where it is thickly covered with brush, dry 

 weeds, canebrake, etc., rare is the hunter, either 

 white or red, who will have patience to follow a track. 

 And often they could not if they would. More often, 

 however, they merely skip such places and depend 

 upon picking up the trail on better ground; but where 

 the whole or greater part of the ground is of the 

 nature above described, nearly all hunters let the 

 tracks alone, unless they be tracks of a traveling 

 band. 



But, on the other hand, there are some kinds of 

 ground on which a deer can be followed with almost 

 as much certainty as on snow, and so fast as to re- 

 quire little patience on the part of the hunter. Such 

 are the bare hilly regions where the ground is not too 

 rocky, and where little or no grass grows and the 

 brush is not too thick. Such is almost all open ground 

 when very wet and not too much covered with dead 

 grass, weeds, etc.; such is most open ground covered 

 with green grass, especially if the dew is on it; such 

 is ground on which wild cattle range, and where the 

 deer often follow the cattle-trails and make runways 

 of their own from one trail to another. On these and 

 various other kinds of ground it often is worth while 

 to work up a trail of even a single deer; but just when 

 and where this will be worth while depends so entirely 



