and their paces are longer than when going slowly.
You ought to be able to tell the place at which a horse has been going directly you see the tracks.
At a walk the horse makes two pairs of hoof prints—the near (left) hind foot close in front of near fore foot mark, and the off (right) fore foot similarly just behind the print of the off hind foot. At a trot the track is similar, but the stride is longer.
To distinguish between bare-foot
tracks, draw a line from tip of big toe to tip of
little toe, then notice how the other toes lie.
The hind feet are generally longer and narrower in s hape than the fore feet.
It was a trick with highwaymen of old, and with horse stealers, to put their horses’ shoes on wrong way round in order to deceive trackers who might try to follow them up. But a good tracker would not be taken in. Similarly, thieves often walk backwards for the same reason, but a clever tracker will very soon recognize the deception.
Wheel tracks should also be studied till you can tell the difference between the tracks of motor-cars or bicycles, and the direction they were going.
The Age of Tracks
In addition to learning to recognize the pace of tracks, you must get to know how old they are. This is a most important point, and requires a very great amount of practice and experience before you can judge it really well.
When you find the tracks of horses, try to discover at what speed the
animals were travelling. This is indicated by the distances between the imprints of the fore feet and the hind feet. In the sketches above, the long feet are the hind feet.
So much depends on the state of the ground and weather, and its effects on the “spoor”. If you follow one track, say, on a dry, windy day, over varying ground, you will find that when it is on light, sandy soil, it will look old in a very short time, because any damp earth that it may kick up from under the surface will dry very rapidly to the same colour as the surface dust, and the sharp edges of the footmarks will soon be rounded off by the breeze playing over the dry dust in which they are brined. When it gets into damp ground, the same track will look much fres her, because the sun will have only partially dried up the upturned soil, and the wind will not, therefore, have bevelled off the sharp edges of the impression. If it gets into damp clay, under shade of trees, etc., where the sun does not get at it, the same track, which may have looked a day old in the sand, will here look quite fresh.
In following the track of a bicycle (or motor-car) study especially spots where the road is uneven. Here there will be many signs.
The direction of a bicycle’s travel is shown by the way dirt is thrown
backward. Also by the loops made in the track where the rider made a turn or wobble:
The thinner end of the loop points in the direction he went.
Of course, a great clue to the age of tracks will often be found in spots of rain having fallen on them since they were made (if you know at what time the rain fell), dust or grass seeds blown into them (if you noticed at what time the wind was blowing), or the crossing of other tracks over the original ones, or, where the grass has been trodden down, the extent to which it has since
dried or withered. In following a horse, the length of time since it passed can also be judged by the freshness, or otherwise, of the droppings , due allowance being made for the effect of sun, rain, or birds, upon them.
Having learned to distinguish the pace and age of spoor, you must next learn to follow it over all kinds of ground. This is an accomplishment that you can practise all your life, and will still find yourself continually improving.
Then there is a great deal to learn from the ashes of fires— whether they are still warm or cold, scraps showing what kind of food the people were eating, whether plentiful or scarce.
You must not only keep a sharp lookout for Scout signs made by your own Scouts, but also for those made by “hostile” Scouts.
Tracking for Stolen Goods
There are very good native trackers in the Soudan and Egypt, and I saw some of their work there.
The Colonel of the Egyptian Cavalry had had some things stolen out of his house, so a tracker was sent for from the neighbouring Jaalin tribe.
Some time, you may come upon these tracks. They are, left to right, deer, sheep, wolf and fox.
He soon found the footprints of the thief and followed them a long way out on to the desert, and found the spot where he had buried the stolen goods. His tracks then came back to the barracks.
So the whole of the regiment was paraded without shoes on, for the tracker to examine. And at the end, when he had seen every man walk, he said, “No, the thief is not there”. Just then the Colonel’s native servant came up to him with a message, and the tracker who was standing by, said to the Colonel, “That is the man who buried the stolen goods”.
The servant, surprised at being found out, then confessed that it was he who had stolen his master’s property, thinking that he would be the last man to be suspected.
Hints on Spooring
