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The instinct of man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him. –Voltaire

Tracking has been around since the beginning of time. It probably began when men realized they were hungry. They tracked their Chase by learning the flora and fauna in their geographic environment. Through trial and error, and loss of life, tracking was refined over the centuries. Families, tribes, and colonies with their scouts used tracking skills for their survival, commandeering needed commodities and control of their domain.

Leaders, spies, and undeserving fugitives, with knowledge of the wilderness, its danger, and its food sources, survived when others perished. A memoir by U.S. Army officer Homer Wheeler captured the skill of a scout named Poor Elk, trailing renegade Cheyenne near Yellowstone in 1874:

“Poor Elk followed about a mile to where the pursued party had camped. He brushed away the ashes from the dead fires and felt of the earth underneath, examined the droppings of the animals, counted the number of fires and noticed, by marks made by the pins, the size of the lodges; carefully scrutinized some moccasins, bits of cloth, that has been thrown away; noticed that the moccasins were sewn with thread instead of sinew and were made as the Sioux made them… A sweat-lodge had been built, indicating that they had remained in camp at least on day, and droppings of the animals determined that the stay had been but one. The position of the camp, the tying of the animals near the tepees and the wickiups, the number of lodges, the care taken by the Indians in leaving, all these things furnished evidence as to the number of Indians and animals and the number of days since they had camped there. Though moving steadily, yet they were in no special hurry; were Sioux and not Cheyennes; had recently left an agency; had not crossed the Yellowstone at the time reported, but two days earlier; were evidently a party of Sioux who were on the way to join the Indians north of the British line. In fact, the record left by these Indians was as complete as though it had been carefully written out.” The Soldier, The Old West Series (New York: Time Life Books, 1974) 117.