Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

PATHFINDING 39you can't trail your own foot-prints. It would takeone of Fenimore Cooper's redskins to do so overNothis firm ground covered with dry fallen leaves.matter: you have a compass, haven't you?Soon, at a point where your outbound course borea bit northerly, you pass it, unknowingly, bygoing straight back west. You feel certain that youare steering right; for that compass is in your handhalf the time.Y ^ ^ V w fFig. 3.—Need of Base lineHang it! here is a bog. To the left it looks impracticable.You go around to the right, and thencarefully even up the winding by swerving left anequal distance. Some lesser curves hereafter areallowed for in the same way. Finally you comeout on the river. You knoiu your return course hasbeen very nearly due west. But the confoundedriver doesn't look a bit like it did at camp! Youstruggle to the bank through thick undergrowth,and when you get there you can't see two hundredyards of the stream in either direction. There is ajungle to the water's edge.