Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1902-12-25
TRAILING WILD ANIMALS.
Fascination of Hunting .Tnem by
Their Footprints.

Trailing deer is one of the finest
sports of America, either up in the
SHOWS Of Manitoba or down in the
South and West, where the black tail
ed deer abound in the hills The deer
is swift and cunning, and the hunter
must needs be strong in wind and
limb to follow where he leads, and
very wise to unravel the story of his
footprints.
The elegant hoof-mark of the deer
could never be anything but q deer's
imprint to the old hunter-but men
may live for years in places where
deer are found, and yet, on coming
across a footprint be unable to de-
termine whether it was made by a
deer or by a sheep or a pig. Indeed,
the footprints of deer, sheep and pig.
seen singly, are remarkably alike, and
only an expert can tell the one from
the other
To trail deer successfully needs the
cunning of the North American In
dian, who knows from the mere touch
and smell of the track not only how
long ago the track was made, but also
the size and condition of the deer who
made it! The hunting Indian Is as
cunning as the hunted deer himself;
he seems himself to enter into the
very workings of the brute mind.
The first mistake by the young deer
hunter Is to follow too closely on his
game. If the hunter watches the trail
at his feet, instead of looking ahead,
he may stumble on his deer unawareS.
This is what the boy hunter did in
Thompson Seton's little STORY of
THE Sandhill Stag"
Sneaking along, watching the tracks
at his feet, he was so startled when
the big-eared, grayish animals he was
after sprang suddenly up before him
that he could stand still and gaze as
they bounded only away, rising higher
and higher at each bound. Then, when
he goes to examine their trail, he
reads a wonderful story. Between
one track and the next he finds a
blank space of Is feet, then another
blank after the next track, the blanks
increasing to Is feet, then to 20, to 25
and sometimes even to 80 feet.
The tracks made by running deer
have spaces between them of from 10
to 80 feet!
Running deer are wingless birds.
They do not run at all, they fly" says
Mr.. Thompson Seton, "and once in a
while they come down again to tap
the hilltops with their dainty hoofs."
II the hunter always followed on
the deer's trail he might follow for
thousands of miles without having a
shot. He must leave the trail when
it grows new and hot, make a detour
and lie up in ambush in front. By
clever manoevring a strong man can
always run down the swiftest deer,
and then at the end Of long chase
the shortened blanks between the
tracks will tell a story Of a deer
grown weary.
The deer often goes back on his
own trail. Sometimes, when the track
is dim, it is hard to tell which way it
leads. But the footprint is a little
sharper at the toe than at the heel,
and when the trail leads over a hill
the hunter can always tell which way
the animal came, for If he went up the
hill his spaces would be short,
through the labor of climbing.
All manner of tricks are played by
hunted deer who know that they are
hunted. One thing they often do is
toreturn little way along their own
track, and then, making a great leap
to one side, race away in another
direction. Sometimes when hard
pressed deer repeat this manoeuvre
time after time, finally lying down to
rest (having bounded aside from the
last traiD in a spot where they can
smell and hear the hunter long before
he comes dangerously near The
hunter, constantly finding himself on
cold scents, must patiently unravel all
the twisted story by the deer's feet,
barking back on the cold scents until
he finds where the real trail begins
anew.-M. Tindan in Pearson's Maya
zine.