Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/140

 Your reason for being lost is that you are traveling around in a circle. There is an open field somewhere not far distant, but you cannot find it. Here is a simple rule. Pick out a tree in the direction that you think is home and go to it. Then pick out another in the same direction and go to that. Then look back at the first tree and pick out a third in line with these two and go to that. Then keep going in this way, always looking back to your two last trees to keep your direction. This will enable you to travel in a straight line, and before you know it, you are out of the woods. But the animals do not have to do this way. They just know. A fox hound will follow a fox all day long, winding in and out. At night he may be many miles from home, but he does not have to wander about to find his home. He just points his nose toward his master's house and travels for home as fast as his legs will carry him.

A friend of mine was once hopelessly lost in the Rockies. He drove his horse for hours toward what he thought was camp, but did not