Sunday the Back Track (Part One)

I had set the southern choke point as a sandy wash about half way to the Wind Caves or roughly a mile and a half from the lodge. I checked it on Thursday morning before the winds came and there were no footprints crossing it other than mule deer and big horn sheep. On Sunday when I started back tracking Kobae to see if I could follow his whole four day journey it wasn't long before I got into the sandy wash. You see the footprints coming across the wash and footprints to the right side going down the wash a few days earlier. My footprints are center in the wash. My feet point out. Whenever guests say they found footprints out in the middle of nowhere I always ask if they point out, bow legged, like they had been riding dirt bikes their whole lives, and they always say yes. Though my tracks look a little fresher, I weigh more, though Kobae is closing the gap, and my print is deeper. Kobae followed me right through the wash probably a few hours after I was there. The faded tracks are from Thursday mid morning and the stronger tracks coming back are from Saturday morning. This is where Kobae spent Friday night. I kept expecting to see the tracks turn south coming back from the Wind Caves but these tracks are coming back from Dripping Springs. Kobae would go onto a hard surface a lot and be nearly impossible to track. Then I'd stand next to the last known track and look in a five foot radius, then ten feet, then 20, then I'd walk a 50 foot radius until I could pick up his tracks again. Sometimes I couldn't see them unless I was looking into the sun so the tracks had a bit of a shine to it. In the first picture I thought I had him coming down the right side but it was two sets of deer tracks.