"Woodcraft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the meadow. I would not eat supper and I would not work. Finally I called Simon. He was a strange, quiet man, not as strong as the others of the crew, but of use to me for his knowledge of woodcraft. As a boy he had been held captive by the Mohawks, and he was almost as deft of ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... he, with kindling enthusiasm, "we will go, Fluella. I want to see the good old chief; I want to enjoy the visit I have promised me from my friend Carvil; I want to hear Phillips discourse on woodcraft, and Chanticleer Codman wake the echoes of the lakes by his marvellous crowing. Yes, yes, we will go, and make uncle and mother go with ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... branches, and strewn them on the ground, laid the hart upon them, on his back, and then bore him to an open space in the wood, where he was broken up by the King, who prided himself upon his skill in all matters of woodcraft. While this office was in course of execution a bowl of wine was poured out for the monarch, which he took, adverting, as he did so, to the common superstition, that if a huntsman should break up a deer without drinking, the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was born and reared in Western Pennsylvania, near the Virginia line. His parents are said to have been very dissipated, and this, perhaps, had some influence in disgusting him with life in the settlements. Becoming skilled in woodcraft, he served with young Simon Kenton, as a scout upon the frontiers. He joined the Virginia army in Dunmore's wars, and, it is said, showed considerable ambition to become distinguished as a soldier. He ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... daughter to the commandant of the fort, that her husband's niece would have nobody but that big voyageur Charle' Charette. Though in those days of the young century a man might become anything; for the West was before him, an empire, and woodcraft was better than learning. Madame Laboise accepted her niece's husband with kindness. Her house was among the most hospitable in Mackinac, and she was chagrined at the reception the ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... smiling at something strange in his gone-by dream, he looked up to the heavens, thinking to see signs of the even at hand, for he seemed to have been dreaming so long. The sky was thinly overcast by now, but by his wonted woodcraft he knew the whereabouts of the sun, and that it was scant an hour after noon. He sat there till he was wholly awake, and then drank once more of the woodland water; and he said to himself, but out loud, for he was fain ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... question was, in which direction should he turn to avoid them? After some hesitation, he determined to go as directly through the woods, toward the river, as possible, and, if discovered, trust to his woodcraft and swiftness of foot to save him. With this determination, he shouldered his rifle and walked rapidly on, taking care, however, to keep a good look-out on all sides, and to make as little noise as possible. All sounds of the pursuit had died away, and the woods ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... savage might have disappeared in the wilderness beyond all possibility of pursuit. But this adventure taught Crockett that he might not enjoy such good luck the next time. Another Indian might be armed with a rifle, and Crockett, self-confident as he was, could not pretend to be wiser in woodcraft than were ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... boys and girls followed, silent as ghosts, their training in woodcraft standing them in good stead. For an instant, they stood in a tense, excited group on shore, Mrs. Irving in ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... the oaks ye cleave, And moved as soon to fear and flight, Men of the glade and forest! leave Your woodcraft for the field of fight. The arms that wield the axe must pour An iron tempest on the foe; His serried ranks shall reel before The arm that lays the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... there was nothing he loved better than to look upon a tripping herd of deer, even when he could not tickle their ribs with a clothyard shaft. Accordingly, quitting the path, he went peeping this way and that through the underbrush, spying now here and now there, with all the wiles of a master of woodcraft, and of one who had more than once donned a doublet of ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... are exquisite in their refinement, and yet robust in their appreciation of some of the rougher phases of woodcraft. "This is a book full of delight. An additional charm lies in Mr. Bull's faithful and graphic illustrations, which in fashion all their own tell the story of the wild life, illuminating and supplementing the pen pictures of the ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... agone and the tidings of his coming would have filled her with dread; now she heard them with relief. Father coming—and Aunt Agnes! Aunt Agnes, who never before had been west of the Hudson. Aunt Agnes, whose forebears had warred against witchcraft and woodcraft, against village crones and forest children, against helpless old women and stealthy young savages—all without mercy when delivered into their hands! Was it in partial reparation for the rapine, the swindling, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... pick up the woodcraft of the tribes when they begin going out with the men. As the boys began to grow up, when a good season came round, and game and grass were plentiful, the old men were seen to draw ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... Providence gives the helpless, recognized a friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, and took other liberties—as the helpless are apt to do. And when he had built a fire against a tree, and had shown them other mysteries of woodcraft, their admiration knew no bounds. At the close of two such foolish, idle, happy hours he found himself lying at the feet of the schoolmistress, gazing dreamily in her face as she sat upon the sloping hillside weaving wreaths of laurel and syringa, in very much the same attitude as ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... warning and spoke no more. He gave all his attention to the course over which he was being taken. Here was his first opportunity to learn something of Indians and their woodcraft. It occurred to him that his captors would not have been so gay and careless had they not believed themselves safe from pursuit, and he concluded they were leisurely conducting him to one of the Indian towns. ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... creak of a tree sounded an alarm which would delay us. But Rajah's sense of hearing was very keen, and whenever we stopped from such sounds he would grin at us and push on ahead. We trusted a great deal to his woodcraft, for he was at home ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of three feet the basket was lowered, covered and the boulder rolled into place. After that the colonel stooped and combed the turf where the boulder had temporarily rested. He showed his woodcraft there. It would take a keener eye than Umballa possessed to note any disturbance. The safety of the treasure ultimately, however, depended upon the loyalty of the keepers under Ahmed. They had been with the colonel for ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... find a bee-tree. The sportsman may track his game to its retreat by the aid of his dog, but in hunting the honey-bee one must be his own dog, and track his game through an element in which it leaves no trail. It is a task for a sharp, quick eye, and may test the resources of the best woodcraft. One autumn, when I devoted much time to this pursuit, as the best means of getting at nature and the open-air exhilaration, my eye became so trained that bees were nearly as easy to it as birds. I saw and heard bees wherever ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... together, the three comrades had strayed from the vague wood road along one of the unexpected levels on the mountain slopes, and had come to a standstill in a place which the boy pretended not to know his way out of. Westover doubted him, for he had found that Jeff liked to give himself credit for woodcraft by discovering an escape from the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... years of age, a man of giant frame and iron muscles, possessed of great powers of endurance, a master of all the arts of woodcraft, and one of the most skilful riflemen in the Western wilds. Keen on the trail, swift of foot, and valorous in action as were the Indian braves, there was no warrior of the tribe the equal in these particulars of the practised hunter who now ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Bardic rules in early Britain enjoined three simple colours: sky blue, the emblem of peace, for the bard and poet; green, for the master of natural history and woodcraft; spotless white (the symbol of holiness), for ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... coming now to know them well. That great copper-ruffed cock was becoming famous up and down the valley. During the Gunner Moon many a one had tried to end his splendid life, just as a worthless wretch of old sought fame by burning the Ephesian wonder of the world. But Redruff was deep in woodcraft. He knew just where to hide, and when to rise on silent wing, and when to squat till overstepped, then rise on thunder wing within a yard to shield himself at once behind some ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... particularly in the wooded districts of the country of the cave men, for a boy of nine to go a mile from home alone. There was danger lurking in every rod and rood, and, naturally, such a boy would not be versed in all woodcraft, nor have the necessary strength of arm for a long arboreal journey, swinging himself along beneath the intermingling branches of close-standing trees. So this departure was, for Ab, a venture something out of the common. But he was strong for his age, and traversed rapidly ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... first visit to the colony since he had left it four months before. His companion, Boduoc, was one of the tribesmen, a young man six years his senior. He was related to his mother, and had been his companion in his childish days, teaching him woodcraft, and to throw the javelin and use the sword. Together, before Beric went as hostage, they had wandered through the forest and hunted the wolf and wild boar, and at that time Boduoc had stood in the relation of an elder brother to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... and in so doing must have exposed himself to many different parties of the natives. A reader of Mr. Cooper's Last of the Mohicans may comprehend, in some measure, the arts by which he was preserved; but, after all, a natural gift seems to lie at the basis of such consummate woodcraft; an instinct, rather than any exercise of intellect, appears to have guided Boone in such matters, and made him pre-eminent among those who were most accomplished in the knowledge of forest life. Then we are ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... perceived that Will Belton would soon be allowed to do just what he pleased with the place. Her father talked as she had not heard him talk since her poor brother's death, and was quite animated on the subject of woodcraft. 'We don't know much about timber down where I am,' said Will, 'just because we've ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... associated with Mr. Hunt in the expedition, and excelled on those points in which the other was deficient; for he had been ten years in the interior, in the service of the Northwest Company, and valued himself on his knowledge of "woodcraft," and the strategy of Indian trade and Indian warfare. He had a frame seasoned to toils and hardships; a spirit not to be intimidated, and was reputed to be a "remarkable shot;" which of itself was sufficient to give him renown upon ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... of the northwest were not formidable in numbers, but they were terrible in their ferocity, their knowledge of woodcraft, and their cunning strategy. General Harrison says that for a decade prior to the treaty of Greenville, the allied tribes could not at any time have brought into the field over three thousand warriors. This statement is corroborated by Colonel James Smith, who had an intimate knowledge of the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... an Isbel was a conundrum she refused to ponder in the present. She was doing it, and the physical act had its fascination. Her ears, attuned to all the sounds of the lonely forest, caught them and arranged them according to her knowledge of woodcraft. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... messenger was worth more than the emerald ring to us at that moment. He had more woodcraft than Kaipi, who had spent most of his time upon the ocean, and his information regarding the direction in which Leith was now heading saved us many weary hours ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... expedition of this period, projected under the auspices of two bold leaders extraordinarily skilled in woodcraft, Joseph Drake and Henry Scaggs, was organized in the early autumn of 1770. This imposing band of stalwart hunters from the New River and Holston country, some forty in number, garbed in hunting shirts, leggings, and moccasins, with three pack-horses to ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... how fish-nets might have been made from willow bark "after the manner of the Indians," and describe other means of securing food that they claim men familiar with woodcraft would have resorted to. The preceding chapters show how impracticable it would have been for us to have consumed our small stock of provisions while manufacturing a fish-net from bark; and how we did resort to every method at our command of procuring food. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... Max," remarked Steve; "wish I knew as much as you do about traveling through the woods, and the things a fellow is apt to meet up with there. The more I hear you tell, the more I make up my mind I'm going to take lessons in woodcraft; but I never ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of Atreus, Menelaus, slew Scamandrius, son of Strophius, sportsman keen, In woodcraft skilful; for his practis'd hand Had by Diana's self been taught to slay Each beast of chase the mountain forest holds. But nought avail'd him then the Archer-Queen Diana's counsels, nor his boasted art Of distant aim; for as he fled, the lance Of Menelaus, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... think that I'd let you go into the swamp? Why, even men who know something of woodcraft think twice before attempting such a trip without a guide. Of course you're not going! I think," she put her paint-stained hand to her head, "that I'm going to have one of my sick headaches. I'll have to go home and lie down ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... little dug out part out with my scout hat. It wasn't so black when I got it all cleaned off. It was kind of chocolate color and I knew it must be very old, because cedar turns that color after a long time. You learn that in Woodcraft. It was all made out of one piece and the place where you sit was just hollowed out—about ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was so well acquainted with the country that he guided us by a short route towards the camping ground, stealing along between the bushes and trees so quietly and rapidly that, with all my knowledge of woodcraft, I had difficulty in following him and keeping close to his heels. At length we saw the reflection of a camp fire, and then we grew more cautious in our movements, frequently stopping for a few minutes to listen if we could hear other sounds besides our footsteps. But we ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... to have thought of that. I am beginning to think that my pupil knows more about outdoor life and woodcraft than I ever dreamed. If you think best, Harriet, we will look down there. In the meantime I would suggest that one of us remain in this vicinity to make a ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... had become a part Of his own life—always he spoke their tongue, He dwelt within their tents—with all his heart He learned their ancient woodcraft, and each art Their race had practised when the ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... kindness to the children, she had smiled upon him. He was a hunter of no mean repute in that region, and was famous for his skill in following shy and scarce game. He had resolved to bring the principles of his woodcraft to bear upon Mildred, and to make his future approaches so cautiously as not to alarm her in the least; therefore he won the children's favor more thoroughly than ever, but not in an officious way. He found Belle moping the evening after her father's departure, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... dissatisfaction in his half-breed hunters; who considered him as trenching upon their province, and meddling with things quite above his capacity; for these veterans of the wilderness are exceedingly pragmatical, on points of venery and woodcraft, and tenacious of their superiority; looking down with infinite contempt upon all raw beginners. The two worthies, therefore, sallied forth themselves, but after a time returned empty-handed. They laid the blame, however, entirely ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... had never seen him look so handsome, debonair and manly. Then, too, his wide knowledge of the woods was a delight to her. Little by little he explained, as he followed the trail, those secrets of woodcraft not found in books. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... The young squire, though educated abroad, had just such a training as made him popular. For he passed part of every year in Texas with Dick Millard, and all that could be known about horses and hunting and woodcraft, Harry Hallam knew. He had also taken on very easily the Texan manner, frank, yet rather proud and phlegmatic: "Evidently a young man who knows what he wants, and will be apt ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... in woodcraft, had heard plainly a man creeping through the underbrush beside us. Fear of the Congo chief and pity for the wretch tore at my heart. Suddenly there loomed in front of us, on the path, a great, naked man. We stood with useless ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sat up with them when they were sick. One by one, when they were scarcely toddlers, he took them down to the lagoon, and made them into amphibians. He taught them more than I ever knew of the habits of fish and the ways of catching them. In the bush it was the same thing. At seven, Tom knew more woodcraft than I ever dreamed existed. At six, Mary went over the Sliding Rock without a quiver, and I have seen strong men balk at that feat. And when Frank had just turned six he could bring up shillings from the ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... warrior on the instant. His woodcraft told him that if his foes were searching for him and his, they would be in such force that he could not hope to combat with them; and the only plan, therefore, that offered him any safety was to fall back ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... a marvellous piece of woodcraft, if such it may be called, on the part of the pony, that he should have struck the spot so accurately, and yet it is scarcely less marvellous that, had he needed direction, his master was competent to give it, despite the darkness and ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... a woodcraft which she trusted, she would swing out at a circle on foot, holding to the laurel thickets and pass, not through but around and above the Gap, which seemed the logical place for a holdup. She consented that her assembled body-guard should, if they insisted, push on and mobilize at Viper, ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... woodcraft beyond the cunning necessary for surprising easy game such as turkeys, squirrels and rabbits. Regardless of his enormous appetite food was gladly given him at every cabin; for wherever he sought shelter, that place was ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... know. While Mark's knowledge was of books, games, people, and places that seemed to Frank almost like foreign countries, he knew the names of every wild animal, bird, fish, tree, and flower to be found in the surrounding country, and was skilled in all tricks of woodcraft. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... took a delightful walk through the woods, Mr. Kavanagh going with us on horseback. Every hill and clump of trees on this large domain he knows, and he led us like a master of woodcraft through all manner of leafy byways to the finest points of view. The Barrow flows past Borris, making pictures at every turn, and the banks on both sides are densely and beautifully wooded. We came in one place upon a sawmill at work in the forest, and Mr. Kavanagh showed us with pride the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... acquired a great reputation for coolness and courage, and many are the stories told of his adventures with the Indians. It has been incontestably proved, that the white man, when accustomed to the woods, is much more acute than the Indian himself in that woodcraft of every species, in which the Indian is supposed to be such an adept; such as discovering a trail by the print of a mocassin, by the breaking of twigs, laying of the grass, etcetera, and in the practice ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... ride to hunt; others, thank Heaven! double their fun by doing both." There are many, many fine riders in England who will not be denied in crossing a stiff country, and who at the same time are interested in the hounds and in the poetry of sport: men to whom the mysteries of scent and of woodcraft, as well as the breeding and management of hounds, are something more than a mere name: men who in after days recall with pleasure "how in glancing over the pack they have been gratified by the shining coat, the sparkling eye—sure symptoms of fitness for the fight;—how when thrown in to covert ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... furnished a modern industrial exhibition, provisions cooked and raw, blankets, maple-sugar, tinware, clothing, pork, Indian meal, flour, coffee, tea, &c. Phelps was the ideal guide: he knew every foot of the pathless forest; he knew all woodcraft, all the signs of the weather, or, what is the same thing, how to make a Delphic prediction about it. He was fisherman and hunter, and had been the comrade of sportsmen and explorers; and his enthusiasm for the beauty and sublimity of the region, and for ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... he continued, "you both ought to be expert woodsmen, thoroughly inured to hardship, conversant with woodcraft ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... those whose strength had resisted the attack. Magnificent trees lie rotting upon the ground in thousands upon thousands, untouched since the hour when they fell before the most scientifically applied axe. I never saw a higher example of woodcraft. The trunks of pines two feet in diameter are cut so carefully, that the work of the axe is almost as neat as that of a cross-cut saw. These large trees are divided about four feet from the ground, as that is a convenient ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... account of these is given by Bennet Woodcraft in his Sketch of the Origin and Progress of ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... vanished with the first look of wondering-inquiry that greeted their coming. Though no tongue could give them any tidings of the lost one, kind and sympathetic hearts were there for comfort, with willing hands and swift feet for help. Among the latter were several hunters, cunning in woodcraft, who could follow a trail, whether of man or beast, the livelong day; and over ground where nothing might be distinguished by the inexperienced eye but grass or leaves, sand, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... red men made the words between the fugitives few, and all their movements guarded. They kept glancing to right and left, in front and to the rear, Linna being probably the most active. It was as if she inherited from her parents their surprising woodcraft, and was now calling it into play for ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... have allowed themselves to hesitate under such conditions; but as Phil said, he had been taught what he knew of woodcraft by a father who was very careful about taking the life he could never give ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... together on the mountains. This was contrary to mountain etiquette, but they were remote even from the rude conventionalities of the life below them. They even went hunting together, and Easter had the joy of a child when she discovered her superiority to Clayton in woodcraft and in the use of a rifle. If he could tell her the names of plants and flowers they found, and how they were akin, she could show him where they grew. If he could teach her a little more about animals and their ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... and, after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... and constables, left for their distant field of action in the month of June. Strickland, who had done fine service on the plains, was to be of great value in the north on account of his knowledge of woodcraft logging, building and such like, in addition to his regular police duties. Wells was to have his hands full, since for some time he was, as some one said, the only doctor in a region as large as France and had, with sometimes inadequate means, to fight scourges of scurvy ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... clearing a space for corn and potatoes. In the meantime he maintained his family entirely by his rifle, and I soon found him to be a first-rate huntsman. Under his tutelage I received my first effective lessons in 'woodcraft.' ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... gentlemen, that here to land are come? All thirteen of body very keen. By him that made me, so fair a band saw I at no time; say what ye seek?" Horn tells his story, and Aylmar likes him, and bids Athelbrus, his steward, teach him woodcraft, and the harp and song, and also to carve and ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... growing. Now he was ten, now twelve, now fourteen—a sturdy young mountaineer, with the sinews of an athlete, and a store of learning, not from books, for he had never known a school, but from the simple teaching of his parents and the unlimited knowledge of woodcraft, of the habits of wild things, of mountain peaks, of plants, of animals, insects and birds, and of the incessant hunt for food that must always be when one lives beyond ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... have made a mess of it. I suppose we can go on without a guide, but really it is not wise for you girls, inexperienced as you are in woodcraft, to venture ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... many followers, who have produced much pleasant literature on out-door life. But in none of them is there that unique combination of the poet, the naturalist, and the mystic which gives his page its wild original flavor. He had the woodcraft of a hunter and the eye of a botanist, but his imagination did not stop short with the fact. The sound of a tree falling in the Maine woods was to him "as though a door had shut somewhere in the damp ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... same manes?" asked Mickey, who was gradually accumulating a wonderful faith in the woodcraft of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... other. The dentist has to multiply instruments to make up for the lack of such acquired power. The fencer who can transfer his weapon to the left hand places his adversary at a disadvantage. The lumberer finds it indispensable, in the operation of his woodcraft, to learn to chop timber right-and-left-handed; and the carpenter may be frequently seen using the saw and hammer in either hand, and thereby not only resting his arm, but greatly facilitating his work. In all the fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous. The sculptor, the carver, ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... in the open, will become a good cragsman in fewer weeks than it will take him years to learn to be so much as a fair woodsman; for it is beyond all comparison more difficult to attain proficiency in woodcraft than ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the cleft between the hills, where they had been the other day, but this time no one waited, with breaking heart, behind the rustling screen of leaves. Against the rock, with some simple woodcraft of stones and dry twigs, Alden made a fire, while Edith spread the white cloth that covered Madame's basket and set forth ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Knight laughed exultantly. "Here is a pupil who never brings me shame!" he cried. "Be it lore—of chivalry or heraldry or woodcraft or what you will, I can always turn to Mary. Many a man can ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... performance of Miss MERCIA CAMERON (a name and talent quite new to me) as Jane Anne, the chief opponent of wumbledom. She was, I think, responsible more than any other for getting some of the mystery of the authentic Black-woodcraft across to the audience. The jolly spontaneity of RONALD HAMMOND as young Bimbo was a pleasant thing, and ELISE HALL, concealing less successfully her careful training in the part, prettily co-operated as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... was filled with her house building and her hunting, to which was added an occasional spice of excitement contributed by roving lions. To the woodcraft that she had learned from Tarzan, that master of the art, was added a considerable store of practical experience derived from her own past adventures in the jungle and the long months with Obergatz, nor was any day now lacking in some ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Johnston's strict and energetic management. He was admirably suited for his difficult position. His grave, reserved manner rendered impossible that familiarity which is so apt to breed contempt, while his thorough mastery of all the secrets of woodcraft, his great physical strength, and his absolute fearlessness in the face of any peril, combined to make him a fit master for the strangely-assorted half-hundred of men now under his sole control. Frank held him in profound respect, and would have ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... understand who we are," he said with determination, "nor what our qualifications are. I am accustomed to the woods, sir. I know something of woodcraft. I have fought fire in the forest. I have spent weeks in the mountains. And I am a wireless operator, sir. Are any ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... every physical weakness or defect; but deceived, moreover, by the rapid development of frame and sinew, which flattered him into the belief that discipline sufficiently unsparing would harden him into an athlete, he slighted the precautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired old foresters with long marches, stopped neither for heat nor for rain, and slept on the earth without blankets." The result was that his intense energy carried him beyond his strength, and while his muscles strengthened and hardened, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... trail spoke an easy language for Jean's keen eye. The gunman knew he was pursued. He had seen his enemy. Therefore Jean proceeded with a slow caution, never getting within revolver range of ambush, using all his woodcraft to trail this man and yet save himself. Queen traveled slowly, either because he was wounded or else because he tried to ambush his pursuer, and Jean accommodated his pace to that of Queen. From noon of that day ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... on horses inured to the miasmic climate, "led" animals carrying their necessary equipment. Each man knew how to take care of himself. He knew only the elementary principles of drill, but was none the less a very tough proposition for a Hun to tackle. Skilled in woodcraft and travelling, able to cover great distances with the minimum of fatigue, and capable of going on short rations without loss of efficiency the Rhodesians were ideal men for the work on hand. One and all had a score to wipe off; though few, if any, had fallen in ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... sun was squarely overhead, pouring down a flood of golden beams, he paused in the shade of a mighty oak, and took food from his belt. He might have eaten there in silence and obscurity, but once more the shiftless one showed a singular lack of caution and woodcraft. He drew together dry sticks, ignited a fire with flint and steel, and cooked deer meat over it. He let the fire burn high, and a thin column of dark smoke rose far up into the blue. Any savage, roaming ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hours to his young visitor. He told him much about woodcraft, and how Nature protected some of her weakest creatures against their foes by giving them the shape and colour of their surroundings. The little brown twig on the bough before them, he pointed out, was in reality a Caterpillar which Birds would have devoured long ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... them in the boat, no matter how far in the rear he might keep himself, would simply be to tell the men he intended to watch them, and, unfamiliar as he was with the country or woodcraft, it seemed both foolish and ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... averse to their company. Being myself privileged with his acquaintance, many of my hunting excursions were made in company with Old Zeb. He was in truth my guide and instructor, as well as companion, and initiated me into many mysteries of American woodcraft. ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... old-fashioned, muzzle-loading, single-barrel rifle, made by a fellow townsman, Henry Slaughterbach. It was an exceedingly accurate and powerful shooting gun. Chauvin was a thorough hunter, well versed in woodcraft, up in camp equipage and the requirements of men on a two or three ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... far as we are aware, no white man has ever shot one! The native hunters take them only in pitfalls or in nooses. Mr. Herbert Lang, of the American Museum of Natural History, diligently hunted the okapi, with native aid, but in spite of all his skill in woodcraft the cunning of the okapi was so great, and the brushy woods were so great a handicap to him, that he never shot even ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... of the woodcraft and outdoor life that boys are learning more and more to love, thanks to the scout movement. Dillon Wallace knows by experience what his boy readers like, and this is one of the best books he has written. It ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... untrodden woods and leafy aisles, whose floors of moss or bark were undisturbed by human footprint, were a keen delight and novelty. More than this, his quick eye, trained perceptions, and frontier knowledge now stood him in good stead. His intuitive sense of distance, instincts of woodcraft, and his unerring detection of those signs, landmarks, and guideposts of nature, undistinguishable to aught but birds and beasts and some children, were now of the greatest service to his less favored companion. ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... encounter with the inhabitants of the forest. They lit no fires at night, and scarce a word was spoken on the march. Several times they had to take refuge in thickets when they heard the sound of approaching voices, and it needed all their knowledge of woodcraft to maintain their direction steadily towards the north. At last, after six days' journey, they issued out into the open country beyond the forest and soon arrived at ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... life was spent as was that of other boys belonging to his class and period. He must have added to his natural abilities and quickness, rare talents for attaining such knowledge as was possible, knowledge of all woodcraft and of nature, knowledge of musical instruments, and acquaintance with arms. Clean of limb and sure of foot, ready of repartee, fearless and alert, he was, even as a boy, something of what he was to become in maturity, one of the greatest men of his own or any ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... monastery to another, and leaving on their way a trail of thieving, revelry and worse. Once or twice the Wild Woman had nearly fallen into their hands; but had been saved by her own quick wit and skill in woodcraft. Once, so she assured the Hermit, she had found refuge with a faun and his female, who fed and sheltered her in their cave, where she slept on a bed of leaves with their shaggy nurslings; and in ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... that you had no knowledge of woodcraft," said Sighard, with high disdain. "Heard one ever of a mounted man coming in on a boar while a spear on foot was before him? Man, one needs eyes in the back of one's head ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... cautious and skilful. Thoroughly trained in woodcraft, and an adept in all the cunning of his people, he used those gifts with success, and, though he approached close to the party of Sioux which were hurrying away from the vengeance of the white men, they never suspected the fact, and the ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... caught the volatile aroma of burning cedar. But he wouldn't admit that she knew where she was, even when she triumphantly pointed out the bleached skull of an alligator nailed to an ungainly black-jack. So they rode on, knee to knee, he teasing her about her pretended woodcraft, she bantering him; but in his lively skirmishes and her disdainful retorts there was always now an undertone which they both already had begun to detect and listen for: the unconscious note of tenderness sounding ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... my father clung to through his wanderings, gave me much to ponder over. I still remember the evenings when he read to us gravely out of his old Shakespeare, dwelling tenderly upon passages he loved. And he instructed me in other things,—in honor and manliness, in woodcraft, and many a pretty thing at arms, until no lad in the settlements around could outdo me in rough border sport. I loved to hear him, of a boisterous winter night,—he spoke of such matters but seldom,—tell about his army life, the men he had fought beside and loved, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... up. There was a trail behind that thicket, an old game trail widened by men's feet, that ran along the seaward slope to Cradle Bay. He went up now to this path. His eye, used to the practice of woodcraft, easily picked up tiny heel marks, toe prints, read their message mechanically. Betty had been running. She ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... that was said about trailing the Wild Hunter for some time to come, but meanwhile we built a more or less open faced permanent camp and Big Pete initiated me into mysteries of real woodcraft, for it was up to us now to live on the land, ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... road Reilly had to break his way through the woods, crossing sharp and deep ravines and watercourses, with no path or landmark to guide him. It was especially difficult for the artillery, and that they got through at all proved that the officers and men were experts in woodcraft. The regiment at Martin's store remained there as ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... cold and winds that tossed and whirled The falling leaf, through drifting snows that pearled Arcadian slopes, untiring in pursuit, He held a lonely chase that bore no fruit; If he at morn descried the stag afar, At night it vanished like a falling star; And though his subtlest woodcraft he had tried, The brazen hoof his cunning still defied. Oft did the harvesters and husbandmen Behold him ranging through an Argive glen, And oft the wandering shepherd saw him rest On some Arcadian ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Navarre (1785-1874) was the son of a French army officer. Besides Canadian French, he could speak the Pottowattomie Indian dialect, and had some knowledge of woodcraft and nature signs. In his calling of fur trader he made friends with the Miamis and their chief, Little Turtle, and when the War of 1812 broke out, offered the services of the tribe to Gen. Hull, as well as his own. The offers were declined, so the ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... advance, so as to have a home ready for us always, at our coming, when we chose to linger by the way. These boatmen were all jolly, good-natured and pleasant people, with a vast deal of practical sense, and a valuable experience in woodcraft, albeit they were rough and unpolished. Their hearts were in the right place, and they commanded our respect always for their kindness and attention to our wants, while they maintained at all times that sturdy independence which enters so largely into the character of the border ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... ten thousand times over rather have been Daniel Boone than George Washington. Seeing his intense pleasure in that life, his father had always allowed him to go off into the wilds for his holidays, and in consequence he knew many little tricks of woodcraft and how to make himself comfortable when the weather was bad. His father, who was a lawyer, had wanted him to enter that profession, but Wilbur had been so sure of his own mind, and was so persistent that at his request he had been permitted to go to the Colorado Ranger School. From this he had ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... hunting of Indians was the most thrilling passion of their lives; indeed, the Wetzels, particularly, knew no other occupation. They had attained a wonderful skill with the rifle; long practice had rendered their senses as acute as those of the fox. Skilled in every variety of woodcraft, with lynx eyes ever on the alert for detecting a trail, or the curling smoke of some camp fire, or the minutest sign of an enemy, these men stole onward through the forest with the cautious but dogged and persistent determination that was ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... these Indians he lived for several years, and having a natural taste for languages, acquired, during this time, a fair knowledge of the tongues of most of the Northern tribes, as well as a smattering of French. He also became well versed in woodcraft, and so thoroughly Indian in appearance and habit that when he was again captured by a marauding party of Maquas, or Mohawks, it was not detected that he was of white blood until he was stripped for the ordeal of the gantlet, in an Iroquois village. His identity being thus discovered, his latest ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Agony emphatically, glad of the opportunity to pay a compliment. "I'm the stupid one about things like that. I never could remember all those things you call woodcraft. I declare, I've forgotten already whether it's the poisonous ones that have the rings, or ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... the forest the Cowardly Lion took the lead. There was no path here for men, but many beasts had made paths of their own which only the eyes of the Lion, practiced in woodcraft, could discern. So he stalked ahead and wound his way in and out, the others following in single file, Glinda being next ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... warrior stretched thus in the unconsciousness of sleep one sultry afternoon. Creeping out upon an overhanging branch the anthropoid dropped to the ground within the boma. He approached the sleeper upon padded feet which gave forth no sound, and with an uncanny woodcraft that rustled not a leaf ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Amy continued slowly, "that the mountains might not seem so kind to one who was lost in them—without a gun perhaps. I have heard Will say that a person who had no knowledge of woodcraft would find it almost impossible to recover his path, once he had lost it. And," she added, with a shudder, her eyes fixed steadily on the distant mountain range, "there are ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... the glade. McFann had been looking down the valley from the sentinel rock. She did not hear him come into camp, as the half-breed always moved silently through underbrush that would betray the presence of any one less skilled in woodcraft. She heard his monosyllabic answers to Talpers's questions. Then Bill himself pushed his way through the underbrush and climbed the rock. When he returned to the camp he ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... have hesitated about following the Mexicans into the forest, but all of the Texans were expert in woodcraft, and thought they could keep out of an ambuscade as well in the woods as ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... let us forget the petty annoyances which have in a measure marred our first day. Did I say marred? No; not that—for these things should be but object lessons teaching us to profit by them, to perfect ourselves in woodcraft. So let us be merry, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... confident that he was following the wrong direction, and with the intention in view of discovering the tracks of the party which had rescued or captured Virginia after he had been forced to relinquish her, he set out in a totally new direction away from the river. His small woodcraft and little experience in travelling resulted in his becoming completely confused, so that instead of returning to the spot where he had last seen the girl, as he wished to do, he bore far to the northeast of the place, and missed entirely the path which von Horn and his Dyaks had taken from the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... life, for the innocent delights of nature-loving Thoreau and bird-loving Burroughs. Sturdy, independent, self-reliant, she is now demanding outdoor books that are genuine and filled with practical information; books that tell how to do worth-while things, that teach real woodcraft and are not adapted to the girl supposed to be afraid of a caterpillar or to shudder at sight ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... sprays from the higher banks as the boat drifted along the other side. The thickets were musical with the chattering cat-birds and whip-poor-wills, mingled with a score of woodland melodists that Jack's limited woodcraft did not enable ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... cross are not picturesque,—they are wild and inhuman as the sea. In them you are in a maze, in a weltering world of woods; you can see neither the earth nor the sky, but a confusion of the growth and decay of centuries, and must traverse them by your compass or your science of woodcraft,—a rift through the trees giving one a glimpse of the opposite range or of the valley beneath, and he is more at sea than ever; one does not know his own farm or settlement when framed in these mountain treetops; ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... care of their wounded bodies, in their reading of the weather and in all forms of woodcraft, animals undoubtedly possess superhuman powers. Even squirrels can prophesy an unusually long and severe winter and thus make adequate preparations. Some animals act as both barometers and thermometers. It is claimed that while frogs remain yellow, only fair weather may be expected, but if ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... double-barreled gun in hand—a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... for the others, we can count on their going away and remaining. As for anyone else, I don't think they will care to attempt stealing my timber after the experience of these men. There is no other man here with Jack's fine ability in woodcraft. He was ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... chance; and towering head and shoulders above them all stands the mighty figure of Daniel Boone, the most famous of American pioneers. About him cluster legends and tales innumerable, some true, many false; but one thing is certain; for boldness, cunning and knowledge of woodcraft and Indian warfare he had ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... other boat, was also using his knowledge of woodcraft to some purpose. When it happened that the two skiffs came alongside he called out to Elmer, as if to settle some ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... shavings and fragments of bark like some shy delicate creature just emerged from its hiding-place, or like some wild flower just opened. It was the first boat of the kind I had ever seen, and it filled my eye completely. What woodcraft it indicated, and what a wild free life, sylvan life, it promised! It had such a fresh, aboriginal look as I had never before seen in any kind of handiwork. Its clear yellow-red color would have become the cheek of an Indian maiden. Then its ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... type of organizations has multiplied in the past few years, and their less religious activities have served to keep the religious and semi-religious types alive. The Boys' Brigade, the National First Aid Association, the Woodcraft Indians, Sons of Daniel Boone, Boy Scouts, and others of like type, are in season and out of season appealing to American boyhood. Their aim is not specific, but general and vague: "Something to do, something to think about, something to enjoy, with a view always to character-building." ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... on the boy's education: real Adirondack guides—old Sam Dunning and one-eyed Enos, the last and laziest of the Saranac Indians. Better men will be discovered for later trips, but none more amusing, and none whose woodcraft seems more wonderful than that of this queerly matched team, as they make the first camp in a pelting rain-storm on the shore of Big Clear Pond. The pitching of the tents is a lesson in architecture, the building of the camp-fire ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... the river's outlet. The lodge is neatly built of bark. It was surrounded by good patches of corn, potatoes, wheat, beans and wild raspberries. There is a stable for a horse and a cow, and all about were the conventional traps of a civilized biped who lives upon a blending of wit, woodcraft and industry. We greatly wished to see this hermit, whose nearest neighbors are thirty miles away. His dog welcomed us with all the passion of canine hunger and days of isolation, but the master was gone to Leech Lake, as we afterward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... off at a run again, keeping as nearly as they could a straight course; for Ned's experience in forest life enabled him to do this, when one unused to woodcraft would have lost all idea of direction. The fact, however, that the mosses grew on the side of the trees looking east, was guide enough for him; for he knew that the warm breezes from the sea would attract them, while the colder inland winds would have ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... in some ways at the head of all our birds, drift through the woods, brown and silent as the leaves around them. Splendid opportunities they give us to test our powers of woodcraft. A thrush passes like a streak of brown light and perches on a tree some distance away. We creep from tree to tree, darting nearer when his head is turned. At last we think we are within range, and raise ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... proceeded to a picturesque point which jutted into the lake below Chazy Landing, and was sheltered by a grove of trees into which we hauled the Mayeta. Bodfish's woodcraft enabled him to construct a wigwam out of rails and rubber blankets, where we quietly resided until Monday morning. The owner of the point, Mr. Trombly, invited us to dinner on Sunday, and exhibited samples of a ton of maple sugar which he had ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... a good, active, able-bodied boy, possessed of average intelligence and rather more than average zeal. He even had theory of a sort, for he had read various "Boy Campers, or the Trapper's Guide," "How to Camp Out," "The Science of Woodcraft," and other able works. He certainly had ideas enough and confidence enough. I sat ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... it be, Lord," said Lord Richard. Therewith he called to him a squire, and said: "Go thou down into the thorpe, and bring hither Christopher, for that a great lord is here who would set him to do a deed of woodcraft, such as is more ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... or so farther brought me to the end of all tokens of travel. The track had dwindled to less and less, and now had dropped to the bouldery bed of a canon stream, from which no woodcraft of mine, nor of my good trail-wise horse, could perceive that it made an exit. If the trail continued, it must follow the bed of the stream. At any rate, here was water, the first requisite for a camp; I decided to go on for a while, but to stick to the creek, for safety. Dismounting, ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... those for the beast, now and then dismounting to lead the horse over difficult ground, and now and then blazing a tree to help them in their return journey—mute testimony to the cruder senses of the white man to whom woodcraft never becomes instinctive. The fact that this couple possesses a horse presages great changes in New England. Ferries will be established; tolls levied, bridges thrown across the streams which now the horses swim, or cross by having their front feet in one canoe ferry and their hind feet ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... the intense heat, it seemed as if they were momentarily impinging upon the burning area, or were being caught in a closing circle. It was remarkable that with his sudden accession of fortune Key seemed to lose his usual frank and careless fearlessness, and impatiently questioned his companion's woodcraft. There were intervals when he regretted his haste to reach Skinner's by this shorter cut, and began to bitterly attribute it to his desire to serve Collinson. Ah, yes! it would be fine indeed, if just as he were about to clutch the prize ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... still and to keep the position as tirelessly as the most patient of the wild creatures themselves—this, he had been taught by Uncle Andy, was one of the first essentials to the acquirement of true woodcraft, as only such stillness and such patience could admit one to anything like a real view of the secrets of the wild. Even the least shy of the wilderness folk are averse to going about their private and personal affairs ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... but the multiplication of slaughter I liked the single best; I had more of the sense of woodcraft with it. When we consider how helpless a partridge is, for instance, before the fierce blow of shot, it does seem fairer that the gunner should have but one chance at the bird. Partridges at least might be kept for single-barrels: great bags of partridges never ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... had done that day. Was it nervousness, or fear? Surely he could find the trail, even though it was almost obliterated! But he wished that it had been Mukoki or Wabigoon who had discovered it, either of whom, with the woodcraft instinct born in them, would have gone to it as easily as a fox to the end of a strong trail hidden in autumn leaves. If he did fail—He shuddered, even as he ran, as he thought of the fate that awaited Minnetaki. A few ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... interest in all pertaining to woodcraft was much broader and more sympathetic than that of his companion, Jabe's interpretation of the sound of the falling tree had seemed hasty and shallow. He knew that there was no better all-round woodsman in these countries than Jabe Smith; but he knew also that Jabe's interest in the craft ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... who had had long practice in the use of a hatchet when she lived with the Hoovers, cut off a strip of bark on a tree at the meeting point of the two trails, so that it formed a plain and unmistakable guide to anyone who knew anything at all of woodcraft. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... carnivore. That was not nearby. He tried to make plans. He felt bitterly self-reproachful that he knew so few of the things that would be useful to a castaway. But he had been a city man all his life. Woodcraft was not only out of his experience—on overcrowded Earth it would ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... builders, while each man was a master of his own especial art, had done most of their work in cities, and when it came to matters of the fields and woods they were not to be trusted. But when David found Roger a little inclined to vaunt his superior woodcraft he set ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... events he seemed to be pretty skillful at woodcraft. The next morning he set to work in real earnest and Tom took fresh hope and courage from ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hours ago had been the protest of his guards; but, none coming, he sped on again. He weighed the danger of running in the open against the opportunities for speed, and decided in favor of the latter. Hitherto, in accordance with a woodcraft invented to meet the emergency, and entirely his own, he had avoided anything in the nature of a road or a pathway, in order to take advantage of the tracklessness which formed his obvious protection; but now he judged the moment come for putting actual ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... looked upon as a leader simply because my uncle was the most influential Whig in the vicinity, and my particular friend and comrade was Jacob Sitz, son of Peter, a lad who could easily best us all in trials of strength or of woodcraft. ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... burro to carry their supplies—and that they should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft—gained upon many like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved—would make a guide unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... drink was delightful, but to spend the money necessary to procure it was a fearful pang. The best way out of the dilemma was to get someone to treat him, and this he did as often as he could. He had plenty of cunning and mother wit, and was skilled in woodcraft, but he was utterly innocent of anything which could fairly be called education. He had been taught to read, but never exercised the gift; he could do an addition sum, and write, with much labour, ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... Kircher was lost. She was humiliated and angry—it was long before she would admit it, that she, who prided herself upon her woodcraft, was lost in this little patch of country between the Pangani and the Tanga railway. She knew that Wilhelmstal lay southeast of her about fifty miles; but, through a combination of untoward circumstances, she found herself unable to ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... must be borne in mind, however, in recalling the two expeditions. In the former Jack and Otto were the actors, but now the hunters were Jack and Deerfoot, and therein lay all the difference in the world. Well aware of the wonderful woodcraft of the young warrior, his courage and devotion to his friends, the parent had little if any misgivings, when she kissed her boy good-by, and saw him enter the wilderness in the ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... He guides the travellers through the wilderness, and, by his superior knowledge, saves them from the Indian ambush and the pursuing savage. They commit themselves implicitly to his guidance, trust their lives to him. Why? Because they confide in his knowledge of woodcraft and in his fidelity. As regards all matters pertaining to the forest, he is an authority; their teacher if they want information, their guide if they are ignorant of the way, their saviour in imminent peril from savage beasts and savage men. He is an authority to them, a perfect authority; for ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... had been taken possession of by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best hunter in his tribe. He tracked game with a sweep of great beams as tireless as the tread of a modern steamer. The little sense in his head was woodcraft. He thought of nothing but taking ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... but the clock would do in a pinch. His woodcraft had taught him how the hands of a clock could find for him the cardinal points. More than once his watch in more peaceful times had ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... ten in number, and were all taken from among the archers. Most of these men had been accustomed to the chase, were skilled in woodcraft, and accustomed to listen to the slightest noises that might tell of the movement of a stag and enable them to judge his position. Sir Eustace, for the present, posted himself in his old position over ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... the solitude of the woods see now the dappled herd, and watch the handsome buck as he roams here and there in the midst of his harem, or, browsing amongst the bushes, exhibits his graceful antlers to the lurking foe, who by patient woodcraft has succeeded in approaching his unsuspecting victim; observe how proudly he holds himself, as some other buck of less pretensions dares to approach the ladies of the group; see how he advances, as on tiptoe, all the hair of his body ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the hounds, to go after my gun—the red skins might waylay me, if I go alone, in spite of all my cunning woodcraft," ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Dunn so close and so noiseless behind his quarry he might well have seemed the other's shadow, to the outskirts of the wood, and as they entered it Dunn made his first fault, his first failure in an exhibition of woodcraft that a North American Indian or an Australian "black-fellow" might have equalled, ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... look about for tracks, but he could find nothing save a confusion of trampled grasses in the close vicinity, and his woodcraft was too meager for the translation ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... got a slap in the face from the porcupine's active and armed tail; and his face would have straightway been transformed into a sort of anguished pincushion, stuck full of piercing, finely barbed quills. He would have paid dear for his ignorance of woodcraft,—perhaps with the loss of an eye, or even with starvation from a quill working through into his gullet. But fortunately for him the ewe understood the peculiarities of porcupines. Just in time she ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... versed in woodcraft to understand that the unfortunate had either felled a tree which had fallen upon him, or passed beneath one of the giants of the forest at the precise moment when its rotten trunk gave way under the ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... left. A short conference in the shadow of a clump of palmettos was held. They were agreed as to the direction, although it lay in a different quarter than the road by which they had entered the clearing. Here the boys' woodcraft ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson |
