How Native Americans Survived Extreme Summer Heat With No Water In Sight

I'm sixty-six years old and I camp the same hills my grandfather camped. But these hills of mine are timber and creek water, so what I know about real heat I got out west of home, in dry country, working summers there as a young man. That country taught me things my own hills never had to. In this one I hold up an old dented canteen and tell you about a man found dead of the heat in dry country with water still in that canteen. He wasn't lost. He wasn't a fool. He did the one thing every one of us was taught to do the first time somebody handed us a canteen, and it's the thing that killed him. I hold that back until the end and then I lay it out plain, because I've never once heard anybody explain it so it makes sense the first time you hear it. Along the way: why the old ones moved at first light and dusk and laid up through the middle of the day, why getting a foot of air between you and hot ground beats any hat, why covering up in loose long clothing costs you less water than stripping down, and why they kept their mouths shut in the heat. I also cover how to find water when there's not a drop showing — how to read the trees, the bends in a dry wash, where game trails come together, and the birds an hour before dark. Plus the honest words: treat every drop you find, know the difference between heat exhaustion and the real emergency, don't drink from a cactus, and tell somebody where you're going.