To walk securely, as the woodsmen walk, without tripping, stumbling, or
slipping, use the woodsmen's method of planting the entire foot on the
ground, with toes straight ahead, not turned out. If you put your heel
down first, while crossing on a slippery log as in ordinary walking, the
natural result will be a fall. With your entire foot as a base upon
which to rest, the body is more easily balanced and the foot less likely
to slip. When people slip and fall on the ice, it is because the edge of
the heel strikes the ice first and slides. The whole foot on the ice
would not slip in the same way, and very often not at all.
Trailing does not consist merely in walking along a path or in making
one for yourself. It has a larger meaning than that and embraces various
lines of outdoor life, while it always presupposes movement of some
kind. In one sense going on the trail means going on the hunt. You may
go on the trail for birds, for animals, for insects, plants, or flowers.
You may trail a party of friends ahead of you, or follow a deer to its
drinking-place; and in all these cases you must look for the signs of
that which you seek.
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