by men is quite important. It is
easy to be led astray by animal trails, for they are often well defined
and, in some cases, well beaten. To the uninitiated the trails will
appear the same, but there is a difference which, in a recent number of
_Field and Stream_, Mr. Arthur Rice defines very clearly in this way:
"Men step _on_ things. Animals step _over_ or around things." Then again
an animal trail frequently passes under bushes and low branches of trees
where men would cut or break their way through. To follow an animal
trail is to be led sometimes to water, often to a bog or swamp, at times
to the animal's den, which in the case of a bear might not be exactly
pleasant.

[Illustration: Returning to camp by the blazed trail.

_Note the blazed trees._]

=Lost in the Woods=

We were in the wilderness of an Adirondack forest making camp for the
day and wanted to see the beaver-dam which, we were told, was on the
edge of a near-by lake. The guide was busy cooking dinner and we would
not wait for his leisure, but leaving the rest of the party, we started
off confidently, just two of us, down the perfectly plain trail. For a
short distance there was a beaten path, then, suddenly, the trail came
to an abrupt end. We looked this side and that. No trail, no appearance
of there ever having been one. With a careless wave of his arm, the
guide had said: "Keep in that direction." "That" being to the left, to
the left we therefore turned and stormed our way through thicket and
bramble, breaking branches as we went. Sliding down declivities,
scrambling over fallen trees, dipping beneath low-hung branches, we
finally came out upon the shore of the lake and found that we had struck
the exact spot where the beaver-dam was located.

It was only a short distance from camp and it had not taken us long to
make it, but when we turned back we warmly welcomed the sight of our
blazed trail, for all else was strange and unfamiliar. Going there had
been glimpses of the water now and then to guide us, returning we had no
landmarks. Even my sense of direction, usually to be relied on and upon
which I had been tempted to depend solely, seemed to play me false when
we reached a place where our blazing was lost sight of. The twilight
stillness of the great forest enveloped us; there was no sign of our
camp, no sound of voices. A few steps to our left the ground fell away
in a steep precipice which, in going, we had passed unnoticed and which,