Читать книгу The Drama of the Forests онлайн

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When a hunter is trailing an animal, he avoids stepping upon the animal's trail, so that should it be necessary for him to go back and re-trail his quarry, the animal's tracks shall not be obliterated. If in circling about his quarry, the hunter should happen to cut his own trail, he takes great care to cut it at right angles, so that, should he have to circle several times, he may never be at a loss to know which was his original trail. If the hunter should wish to leave a danger signal behind him, he will take two saplings, one from either side of the trail, and twist them together in such a way that they shall block the passage of the follower, requiring him to pause in order to disentangle them or to pass around them; and if the hunter were to repeat such a signal two or three times, it would signify that the follower should use great caution and circle down wind in order to still-hunt the hunter's trail in exactly the same way he would still-hunt a moose. Then, again, if the hunter should wish to let the follower know the exact time of day he had passed a certain spot, he would draw on the earth or snow a bow with an arrow placed at right angles to the bow, but point[Pg 40]ing straight in the direction where the sun had been at that precise moment.