Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/135

Rh and also keep your ears open for sounds such as cracking of a twig, dogs suddenly barking and so on.

The battle of Boomplatz, fought by the British against the Boers, was successful for us partly because Sir Harry Smith, the Commander, noticed some buck in the distance suddenly startled and running for no apparent reason, but his suspicions being aroused he sent scouts to investigate, and they found a Boer force trying to form an ambush for him, and he was able to defeat their aims in consequence.

By night of course you must use your ears instead of your eyes and practice at this helps to make perfect.

A trained Scout will see little signs and tracks, she puts them together in her mind, and quickly reads a meaning from them such as an untrained woman would never arrive at.

And from frequent practice she gets to read the meaning at a glance, just as you do a book, without the delay of spelling out each word, letter by letter.

I was one day, during the Matabele War [show on map] with a native out scouting near to the Matopo Hills over a wide grassy plain. Suddenly we crossed a track freshly made in grass, where the blades of grass were still green and damp, though pressed down; all were bending one way, which showed the direction in which the people had been travelling. Following up the track for a bit it got on to a patch of sand, and we then saw that it was the spoor of several women (small feet with straight edge, and short steps) and boys (small feet, curved edge, and longer strides), walking, not running, towards the hills,