Note.—I admit that the above deductions hinge on very little—one link might just be wrong and so break the whole chain. This is often, indeed generally, the case, and corroborative evidence should always be sought for.
In the present instance my deductions proved pretty correct. I saw the couple later on, followed by their collie dog, riding along a lower road; but I could not determine their relationship to one another.
Note on Examples I. and II.
Incidentally, the horse-tracks of No. 2 gave me a clue to the hour at which the invalid in the rickshaw had passed that way. Thus: I came on the droppings at 7.14.
Assuming that they were actually 15 minutes old and the horses had walked ¼ mile since passing the rickshaw, 19 minutes must have elapsed since the passing; i.e. they passed each other at 6.55.
On my arrival at the point where they had passed, the rickshaw would now be 23 minutes ahead of me, or about 1¼ mile.
But it is not only on set occasions that Baden-Powell practises scouting. He rarely takes a walk, boards a 'bus, or enters a train, without finding opportunity for some subtle inductive reasoning. Thus he recommends the men in his regiment to notice closely any stranger with whom they may come in contact, guess what their professions and circumstances are, and then, getting into conversation, find out how near the truth their surmises have been. Therefore, dear reader, if you find yourself in a few months' time drifting into conversation with a good-looking, bronzed stranger, this side of fifty, who puts rather pointed questions to you, after having studied your thumbs, boots, and whiskers intently, take special delight in leading him harmlessly astray, for thereby you may be beating, with great glory to yourself, the "Wolf that never Sleeps."
The joy of a walk in the country is heightened, I think, by following the example of Baden-Powell, and paying attention to the tracks on the ground. It would be an uncanny day for England when every man turned himself into a Sherlock Holmes, but there is no man who might not with advantage to himself practise scouting in the Essex forests or on the Surrey hills. The world is filled with life, and yet people go rambling through fields and woods without having seen anything more exciting than a couple of rabbits and a few blackbirds.
The chief joy of scouting, however, is not to be found in what Baden-Powell calls "dear, drowsy, after-lunch Old England." They who would seek it must go far from this "ripple of land," far from
The happy violets hiding from the roads,
The primroses run down to, carrying gold,—
The tangled hedgerows, where the cows push out
Impatient horns and tolerant churning mouths
'Twixt dripping ash-boughs,—hedgerows all alive
With birds and gnats and large white butterflies
Which look as if the May-flower had caught life
And palpitated forth upon the wind,—
Hills, vales, woods, netted in a silver mist,
Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills,
And cattle grazing in the watered vales,
And cottage-chimneys smoking from the woods,
And cottage-gardens smelling everywhere,
Confused with smell of orchards.