When I am walking along a road or path, I generally do a little
tracking every day, because it is only by constant practice that a
fellow can learn tracking or can keep his eye in when he has learnt
it. It is quite easy and simple to do, only Scouts often do not think
of doing it.
Here, for instance, is what I did one morning. There is nothing
wonderful in it, but Scouts will understand all the better that such
practice should be an everyday matter, and not merely attempted on
some great occasion. It is bound to be a failure then if it has not
been regularly gone in for before.
My practice was on an ordinary country road, dry and hard, with a
slight layer of dust in most places, up and down hill; between high
hedges; no wind (wind, you know, soon flattens out tracks in dust and
makes them look much older than they really are).
At about eight o'clock in the morning, as I passed from one field to
another, I crossed the main road at the point where it reached the top
of a hill.