"Ah, you've got a heap to learn yet, Rube," Kiddie rejoined. "Why, when I'm out and about there's never a day, never an hour, hardly a minute, but I see something new, learn something fresh in woodcraft and scoutcraft. You don't go along with your eyes shut and your ears and nostrils closed, do you? What did you see early this mornin', for example, when you went across the grass patch, the dew still lying?"
"Say, now, how d'you know I saw anythin'?" Rube asked. "You was in bed."
"Yes, but I could see you from my pillow. You went aside from the straight trail."
"That's so," acknowledged Rube. "I was tryin' ter foller a track in the dew—some biggish animal, I guess; but thar wasn't no footmarks—not in the long grass—an' the track didn't lead to nothin'—only a root of dandelion with the leaves chewed off."
"Perhaps you went the wrong way," suggested Kiddie. "Was the track lighter than the rest of the grass, or darker?"
"Um! Now you puzzle me," demurred Rube. "I ain't just sure; but I guess it was darker. Yes, it was sure darker. Why? What's that gotter do with it?"
"Why? Well, a scout would sure know that grass blades bent towards him look dark; bent away from him, light. If the trail of your biggish animal this morning was darker than the grass, then you didn't follow him, you were going away from him all the time. He was probably a stoat on the track of a jack-rabbit. If you'd followed the other way, you might have seen where that stoat chased his victim into its burrow, and you might have seen where he came out again alone, after his feed underground. There's a heap of information in a track, Rube, altogether independent of plain footprints."
Rube rested his chin in his hands, listening.
"Suppose a bicycle or an automobile car had gone along a dusty or a muddy trail," continued Kiddie, "and you wanted to know which way it was travelling, what 'ld you do ter discover? You'd look at the rut the wheel had made. You'd see that the loose dust or the wet mud feathered out from it in the direction in which the wheel was going. No need ter search for footprints. It's the same with drops of blood from a wound, drops of water splashed from a jug or a bucket—any drippin' liquid; the drops splash forward in the direction in which the person splashing them was movin', the splashes being longer or shorter according to the person's pace. If you aim at being a capable scout—a good tracker—don't study the obvious things alone: look as well at the smaller signs, which often tell you more. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, keep your senses busy—your sight, your hearing, your senses of smell and touch. At the present moment my senses tell me there's a mosquito in this yer veranda: I c'n hear the critter humming away back of me. I know that we're goin' to have bacon and eggs for dinner; I c'n smell them bein' fried. The kitchen's some warm; your mother has opened the window; I c'n feel the draught from it."
In the days of Kiddie's convalescence, Rube learnt many a lesson in scoutcraft; lessons which he hastened to put into practice. It was afterwards, however, when Kiddie was well, and they could go camping out together in the wilds, that he learnt most. In the meantime, there was the work of building the woodland cabin to attend to.