Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

—BIVOUACS 21I got to drawing diagrams on the ground. Makingno headway at this, I began considering how to passthe night if I remained just where I was.This cleared my mind, robbed the woods of theirspooks, and presently I was myself again. Then theactual situation flashed upon me. I saw just howI had got into this scrape, and knew that if I madea circuit of 200 yards radius I would strike the trail.Before this it had seemed at least two miles away.Well, I found it, all right. Had I listened to thedemon of flight, in the first place, I would haveplunged into one of the worst canebrakes in all Arkansas,and might have struggled there till I diedall within a mile and a half of my own camp.I have been lost several times: in canebrakes, inflat woods of the overflow country, in the laurel,fog, above the clouds (in the sense that I did notknow on which side to descend from an aiguille orbare pinnacle of rock), and in caverns. The caveexperiences were hair-raising, but the others wereDnly incidents to chuckle over in retrospect, althoughI have scorched the back of more than one coat fromlying too near a bivouac fire. A bad record, youwill say, for one who assumes to tell others how tokeep from getting lost! Well, maybe so; but thefact that I am still on deck may be some excuse foroffering a little counsel as to what to do if youshould get lost.I do not think that one can get the best of wildlife if he does not often *'go it alone." Men whoare interested in the guiding business may say otherwise.If one does go it alone, he may as well takeit for granted that, sooner or later, he will get lostand have to stay out over night, or for several nights,alone. There is no man, white or red, who is notliable to lose his bearings in strange woods if he iscareless. If an Indian is seldom at fault as to hiscourse it is because he pays close attention to business;he does not lose himself in reverie, nor is hismind ever so concentrated on an object that he failsin