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Show 'Sign-Cutting' Nabs Wetbacks Border Patrol Alert At U.S. -Mexico Gate pOOTPRINTS do tell tales! Their story is read daily by the men of the United States border patrol who guard the U.S. -Mexican line from the Pacific at San Ysidro, California, to the mouth of the Rio Grande at Port Isabel, Texas. This vast stretch of blazing desert, des-ert, rugged mountains, and desolate deso-late shores of the murkey Rio Grande is the backdrop for the "wetback" field-worker problem now giving both republics diplomatic diplo-matic headaches. Along this boundary bound-ary beat of the border patrol is some of the wildest and most isolated iso-lated country on this continent. Yet the border patrol officers who ride over the bleak waste of sand and the rugged terrain of the Big Bend country can say just what crossed the line at night, where and when it crossed and in what direction direc-tion it went. By finding and interpreting marks left by anyone who has passed across the international line, the Border Patrol gains clues useful in turning back the waves of line-jumpers who hope to reach a smelter, mine, beet or cotton field and "get lost" before being apprehended. "Sign-cutting" is the Border Patrol Pa-trol term for tracking, familiar to hunters, trappers, farmers, Boy Scouts and others whose activities take them off the beaten trail. Specially trained in the art of sign-cutting, officers patrolling the border are constantly on the lookout look-out for "sign" footprints, tire or hoof tracks, misplaced rocks, bent gass, cigarette butts or marks of branches trailed behind the "brush-tail" "brush-tail" or illegal crosser to obliterate his tracks. To "cut sign" means simply to cross a trail, interpret it, and follow it. Because footprints can be seen most plainly when the sun is low, an officer usually patrols then. |