Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

22 CAMPING AND WOODCRAFTto notice irregular or uncommon things along theway. And yet, even Indians and white frontiersmensometimes get lost.I have been with a first-class woodsman when hegot mixed up on his own home hunting-ground—anoverflow from the Mississippi, flooding sixty milesinland,had swept awayPold landmarks, replacedthem with new ones,and changed the appearanceof the country;then, subsiding, ithad even altered thedrainage of the land.^. 1 T- ,1 . , At such a time theFig. 1.— Following the . r ^ -u *.,,. o. water or a tributaryWrong Stream ^ nmay actually run upstream.In fog or snowstorm anybody can get lost.You may take a professional guide from New Brunswick,let us say, or from Florida—it matters notwhere—place him in a new country where outlooksare few, and where the vegetation, the rocks andsoil, and the general features of the country, arestrange to him, and, if he does not get lost, it willbe because he thinks more about avoiding it than hedoes about anything else.Those who scout the idea of their ever losing bearingsare such as have traveled littlein strange lands,or have never ventured far without a native guide.Personally, I would rather get lost now and thenthan be forever hanging on to a guide's coat-tail. Itis a matter of taste. Anyway, I shall never againhave the willyjigs as I had 'em that first time, whenI was actually within forty rods of a plain trail.In THE Mountains.—There is little excuse forgetting lost, in fair weather, in a mountainous orundulating country where there are plenty of watercourses,unless one gets on the wrong side of a dividethat separates two streams which do not run intoeach other. Thus, in Fig. i, let ABC be a main