"Brush slanted across your
path is easier lifted over your head and dropped behind you than pushed
aside," will do as an example.
A good woods-walker progresses without apparent hurry. I have followed
the disappearing back of Tawabinisay when, as my companion elegantly
expressed it, "if you stopped to spit you got lost." Tawabinisay
wandered through the forest, his hands in his pockets, humming a little
Indian hymn. And we were breaking madly along behind him with the
crashing of many timbers.
Of your discoveries probably one of the most impressive will be that in
the bright lexicon of woodscraft the word "mile" has been entirely left
out. To count by miles is a useless and ornamental elegance of
civilization. Some of us once worked hard all one day only to camp
three miles downstream from our resting-place of the night before. And
the following day we ran nearly sixty with the current. The space of
measured country known as a mile may hold you five minutes or five
hours from your destination. The Indian counts by time, and after a
little you follow his example. "Four miles to Kettle Portage" means
nothing. "Two hours to Kettle Portage" does. Only when an Indian tells
you two hours you would do well to count it as four.
Well, our trip practically amounted to seven days to nowhere; or
perhaps seven days to everywhere would be more accurate. It was all in
the high hills until the last day and a half, and generally in the
hardwood forests.
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