Page:Cathlamet On the Columbia.djvu/48

 instinct that he would afterwards retrace his tracks for miles and gather up every article.

It almost seemed as if the hunter had the sense of smell possessed by hunting dogs, but the Indians disclaimed this capacity and to their familiar hunting friends talked freely about the way they found the trail. One thing that helped them was that they were familiar with the lay of the ground and knew the runways and habits of the animals and could very nearly guess where any particular one was bound.

Where an elk had been feeding it was very difficult to follow him, and sometimes the Indian would make a short cut to find out where he had left his feeding grounds, and this made it occasionally necessary to look up the back track, but ordinarily it was a straight-away stalk for miles through the brush and heavy timber,