Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 11).djvu/22

 and these would, ordinarily, admit only of one such person as broke them open. True, the Indians did have broader trails; but they were very local in character and led to maple-sugar orchards or salt wells. From such points to the Indian villages there ran what seemed not unlike our "ribbon roads"—the two tracks made by the "travail"—the two poles with cross-bar that dragged on the ground behind the Indian ponies, upon which a little freight could be loaded. In certain instances such roads as these were to be found running between Indian villages and between villages and hunting grounds. They were the roads of times of peace. The war-time trails were always narrow and usually hard—the times of peace came few and far between. As we have stated, so narrow was the trail, that the traveler was drenched with water from the bushes on either hand. And so "blind"—to use a common pioneer word—were trails when overgrown, that they were difficult to find and more difficult to follow. Though an individual Indian frequently marked his way through the forest, for the benefit of others who were to follow