Part 41 (1/2)
Note 39, page 100: Persons who are lost and are going it blindly on foot usually keep inclining to the left, because they step a little farther with the right foot than with the left. After a time they complete a circle. Scouts should watch themselves and note whether they are making toward the left or not. Horses, too, are supposed to circle toward the left. But all this applies chiefly to the level country. In the mountains and hills the course is irregular, as the person or horse climbs up and down, picking the easier way. And on a slope anybody is always slipping downward a little, on a slant toward the bottom, unless he lines his trail by a tree or rock.
Scouts when they think that they are lost should hold to their good sense. If they feel themselves growing panicky, they had better sit down and wait until they can reason things out. The Scout who takes matters easy can get along for a couple of days until he is found or has worked himself free; but the Scout who runs and chases and sobs and shrieks wears himself down so that he is no good.
To be lost among the hills or mountains is much less serious than to be lost upon the flat plains. The mountains and hills have landmarks; the plains have maybe none. In the mountains and hills the Scout who is looking for camp or companions should get up on a ridge, and make a smoke--the two-smoke ”lost” signal--and wait, and look for other smokes.
If he feels that he must travel, because camp is too far or cannot see his smoke, or does not suspect that he is lost, his best plan is to strike a stream and stick to it until it brings him out. Travel by a stream is sometimes jungly; but in the mountains, ranches and cabins are located beside streams. Downstream is of course the easier direction.
It is a bad plan to try short cuts, when finding a way. The Scout may think that by leaving a trail or a stream and striking off up a draw or over a point he will save distance. But there is the chance that he will not come out where he expects to come out, and that he will be in a worse fix than before. When a course is once decided upon, the Scout should follow it through, taking it as easy as possible.
Note 40, page 106: Old-time scouts had to make all their fires by flint and steel; and it is well for modern Scouts to practice this. When the ground is too wet, and would be apt to put out the little blaze, the fire can be started in a frying-pan. Matches are very convenient, but they must be warded from dampness. They can be carried in a corked bottle; they can be dipped, before leaving home, in melted paraffin, which will coat them water-proof; and dampness can be rubbed out of them by friction by rolling them rapidly between the palms of the hands and scratching them quick. When every object is soaked through, matches (if dry) may be lighted upon a stone which has been rubbed violently against another stone.
If the Scout has a rifle or pistol or gun, then he can make a fire by shooting powder into a bunch of tinder--raveled handkerchief or coat lining, or frazzled cedar bark. The bullet or the shot should be drawn out of the cartridge, and the powder made loose, and the tinder should be fastened so that it will not be blown away.
In the rain a blanket or coat or hat should be held over the little blaze, until the flames are strong.
It was the old-time scouts who taught even the Indians to make fire by flint and steel, or by two flints. Two chunks of granite, especially when iron is contained, will answer. The Indians previously had used fire-sticks and were very careful to save coals. But they saw that ”knocking fire out of rocks” was much easier.
Note 41, page 108: Scouts of course know the Big Dipper or the Great Bear, and the Little Dipper or the Little Bear, in the sky. The Big Dipper points to the North Star or Pole Star, and the North Star or Pole Star is the star in the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.
These two formations up above are the Clock of the Heavens.
The ”Guardians of the Pole” are the two stars which make the bottom of the cup of the Big Dipper. They are supposed to be sentinels marching around and around the tent of the North Star, as they are carried along by the Big Dipper. For the stars of the Big and the Little Dipper, like all the other stars, circuit the North Star once in about every twenty-four hours.
But the old-time scouts of plains and mountains told time by the ”Pointers,” which are the two bright stars forming the end of the cup of the Big Dipper. These point to the Pole Star, and they move just as the ”Guardians of the Pole” move. They are easier to watch than the ”Guardians of the Pole,” and are more like an hour-hand. With every hour they, and the ”Guardians of the Pole,” and all the Dipper stars move in the same direction as the sun one and one-half the distance between the stars forming the top of the Big Dipper's cup. The Scout with a good memory and a good eye for distance can guess pretty nearly how time pa.s.ses.
He has another method, too. The circuit of the stars is not quite the same as the circuit of the sun; for the stars swing about from starting-place to starting-place in about four minutes less than twenty-four hours, so that every month they gain 120 minutes, or two hours. On May 1, at nine in the evening, the ”Pointers” of the Big Dipper are straight overhead, and point downward at the Pole Star, and if we could see them twelve hours later, or at nine in the morning, we should find them opposite, below the Pole Star, and pointing up at it.
On June 1, they would arrive overhead two hours earlier, or at seven in the evening, and by nine o'clock would be west of overhead, while at seven and nine in the morning they would be opposite, or halfway around.
On August 1 their halfway places would be at three in the afternoon and three in the morning.
So, figuring each month, and knowing where the ”Pointers” are at nine, or at midnight, or at three in the morning, the Scout can read, for several nights running without appreciable change, what time it is. And on the plains the old trappers were accustomed to look up out of their buffalo-robes and say, ”By the Pointers it is midnight.”
The Big Dipper swings on such a wide circle that sometimes it drops into the hills or into mist. The Little Dipper stays high in the sky.
Therefore sailors choose the two brighter stars in the end of the cup of the Little Dipper, and watch them, for an hour-hand.
The Blackfeet Indians call the Big Dipper the Seven Brothers, and they, and also other plains people such as sheep-herders and cowboys, tell the time by the ”Last Brother,” which is the star in the end of the handle.
”The Last Brother is pointing to the east,” or ”The Last Brother is pointing downwards to the prairie,” say the Indians. And by that they mean the hour is so and so.
Note 42, page 109: The ”Papoose on the old Squaw's Back” is a tiny star, Alcor, very close to the star Mizar which forms the bend in the handle of the Big Dipper. To see this tiny star is a test for eyesight. The Sioux Indians say that the Big Dipper is four warriors carrying a funeral bier, followed by a train of mourners. The second star in the train (or the star in the bend) is the widow of the slain brave, with her little child, or the Little Sister, weeping beside her!
The Blackfeet and other Indians say that the Pole Star (which does not move) is a hole in the sky, through which streams the light from the magical country beyond. They call it ”the star that stands still.”
By the ”Lost Children” Jim Bridger meant the Pleiades. These stars, forming a cl.u.s.ter or nebula, sink below the western horizon in the spring and do not appear in the sky again until autumn; and the following is the reason why. They were once six children in a Blackfeet camp. The Blackfeet hunters had killed many buffalo, and among them some buffalo calves. The little yellow hides of the buffalo calves were given to the children of the camp to play with, but six of the children were poor and did not get any. The other children made much fun of the six, and plagued them so that they drove them out of the camp. After wandering ashamed and afraid on the prairie, the six finally were taken up into the sky. So they are not seen in the spring and summer, when the buffalo calves are yellow; but in the autumn and winter, when the buffalo calves are black, they come out.
Nearly everybody can see the six stars of the Pleiades, and good eyesight can make out seven. By turning the head and gazing sideways the seven are made plainer. An English girl has eyesight so remarkable that she has counted twelve.
The Western Indians have had names for many of the stars and the planets and the constellations, and the night sky has been of much company and use to them and to the old plainsmen and mountaineers, just as it was to Jim Bridger at this time.
Mars is ”Big-Fire-Star”; Jupiter is ”Morning Star,” or when evening star is ”The Lance”; Venus is ”Day Star,” because sometimes it is so bright that it can be seen in the day. Scouts should know by the almanac what is the morning star, and then when it rises over the camp or the trail they are told that morning is at hand.
Note 43, page 110: Sunday comes to the trail, to the mountains and plains and field and forest, just as often as to the town and the farm.