TRACKING GAMES.
PRACTICES AND GAMES IN SPOORING.
Track Memory.
Make a patrol sit with their feet up so that other scouts can study them. Give the scouts, say, three minutes to study the boots. Then leaving the scouts in a room or out of sight let one of the patrol make some footmarks in a good bit of ground. Call up the scouts one by one and let them see the track and say who made it.
Track Drawing
Take out a patrol; set them on to one foot-track. Award a prize to the scout who makes the most accurate drawing of one of the footprints of the track. The scouts should be allowed to follow up the track till they get to a bit of ground where a good impression of it can be found.
FOR HONOURS.
Spot the Thief.
Get a stranger to make a track unseen by the scouts. The scouts study his track so as to know it again.
Then put the stranger among eight or ten others and let them all make their tracks for the boys to see, going by in rotation. Each scout then in turn whispers to the umpire which man made the original track—describing him by his number in filing past. The scout who answers correctly wins; if more than one answers correctly, the one who then draws the best diagram, from memory, of the foot-print wins.
This game may also be carried out as a test for marks towards a badge of honour. Correct detection of the thief counts two marks; if good diagram is also drawn another mark may be added.