.^06 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
Blazes 
First among the trail signs that are used by Wood- 
crafters, Indians, and white hunters, and most likely to 
be of use to the traveler, are axe blazes on tree trunks. 
Among these some may vary greatly with locality, but 
there is one that I have found everywhere in use with 
scarcely any variation. That is the simple white spot 
meaning, “Here is the trail” 
The Indian in making it may nick off an infinitestimal 
speck of bark with his knife, the trapper with his hatchet 
may make it as big as a dollar, or the settler with his 
heavy axe may slab off half the tree-side ; but the sign is 
the same in principle and in meaning, on trunk, log, or 
branch from Atlantic to Pacific and from Hudson Strait 
to Rio Grande. ‘‘This is your trail/’ it clearly says in 
the universal language of the woods. 
There are two ways of employing it: one when it 
appears on back and front of the trunk, so that the trail 
can be run both ways ; the other when it appears on but 
one side of each tree, making a blind trail, which can be 
run one way only, the blind trail is often used by trappers 
and prospectors, who do not wish any one to follow theiit 
back track. 
But there are treeless regions where the trail must be 
marked ; regions of sage brush and sand, regions of rock, 
stretches of stone, and level wastes of grass or sedge. 
Here other methods must be employed. 
A well-known Indian device, in the brush, is to break a 
twig and leave it hanging. ( Second line.) 
Among stones and rocks the recognized sign is one 
stone set on top of another ( top line) and in places where 
there is nothing but grass the custom is to twist a tussock 
into a knot ( third line). & 
These signs also are used in the whole country from 
Maine to California. 
