Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1900-03-24

the footmarks show that the men were
wearing sandals IL means they were on
a long march, II barefooted, they were
not going Tar.
TRACKING THE ENEMY.
II Is often a useful thing, after pas
sing a place where you suspect an
enemy 10 be hiding, 10 turn very sud
denly and look for him. You may thus
catch him looking out less carefully.
In selecting your lookout place, al
ways be careful TO see that there Is
more than one way out OF II. so that
Il an enemy cuts you of at one you can
escape by the other Thus, a tower Is
a tempting place to look out from, but
n an enemy comes and stands guard
at the foot Of Il YOU cannot get away,
whereas the roof Of house VIII give
you an almost equally good view and
possibly several different ways Of get
ting to the ground.
Trees, for the same reason as tow
ers. must be used with caution. Re-
member that men are very apt 10 for
get TO look up In trees for you-unless
they see your f0otmarks on the ground
leading TO a tree. have stood under
a tree with an enemy UP In IT, and
never noticed him til he fired down at
me-
Tracking means following UP foot
marks. II is called 'pOorlng' In south
Africa. Scouting without tracking Is
Ike bread-and-b without the
bread The first thing to learn Is TO
distinguish the pace at which horse
or man was moving when he made the
track. 1t will be seen that a horse
walking leaves pairs Of footmarks,
each hind foot coming close 20 the i'm
preston OF the fore foot. At a trot
each pair OF footmarks is at a greater
distance from the next. and the ground
is more forclbly struck. the toe more
deeply indented in the ground than
al a walk At canter there are two
single footmaSks, and then pair at
a gallop single footmarks deeply in
dented.
CHARACTER BY FOOTPRINTS.
With a man walking, the whole fiat
Of the foot comes equally on the
ground, the feet little under one yard
apart. Running, the toes are more
deeply indented in the ground, and the
feet are more than a yard apart Ma
tive crackers boast that not only can
they tell a persons sex and age by
their tracks. but also their characters,
They say that people who turn out
their toes much are generally liars. II
was a trick with highwaymen Of old,
and with horse stealers more recently,
20 put their horses shoes on wrong
way round, IN order to deceive track
ers who might try to follow them up,
but a good tracker would not be taken
In. Similarly, thieves often walk back
ward. In tracking where spoor is difiiv
cult TO see--such as on hard ground, or
In grass-note the direction OF the last
footprint that you can see. and then
look on In the same direction, but well
ahead OF yOi-say twenty or thirty
yards-and In the grass you Will gen
orally see the blades bent or trodden,
and on hard ground possibly stones
displaced or scratched, and so on-small
signs, which seen in line one behind
the other, give a kind OF track that
otherwise would not be noticed. |
once tracked q bicycle on a hard ma
cadam road, where 1t really made no
impression at ALL but by looking along
the surface OF the road FOR a long dis
lance ahead OF me, under the rising sun,
as II happened, the line II had taken
was quite visible through the almost
invisible coating Of dew upon the
ground. Standing on the track, and
looking down upon 1t close to my feet,
l could not see the slightest sign Of II.