To be off in a hurry.
1833. Never man ‘made tracks,’ as they say in the West, as did Jack Hastie.—J. K. Paulding in the Knickerbocker Mag., i. 148.
1833. I think I’ll let go the willows, and make tracks for Bob Ruly [Bois Brule], where I belong.—The same, ‘The Banks of the Ohio,’ i. 147–8 (Lond.).
1833. I cut a stick, and made tracks, and came back to my old range.—Id., ii. 76.
[1839. Go, sir, by Julius Cæsar; I give you your life and liberty—I release you:—go, fly, save your bacon—run, jump, cut stick, clear out! make streaks, I tell you, and hide in woods and caves from the wrath of your injured and offended country.—R. M. Bird, ‘Robin Day,’ i. 243 (Phila.)]
1843. Drake was hoisted overboard, and made tracks down Water Street.—Phila. Spirit of the Times, Aug. 25.
1849. He bounded from the room and “made tracks” for the steamboat wharf, upsetting a watchman in his flight.—Yale Lit. Mag., xiv. 190 (Feb.).
1850. Now, stranger, you may be a Mormon for all I know; but if you are, I advise you make tracks out of this State as fast as you can go.—Frontier Guardian, Feb. 20.
1850. The biggest tracks, and the fastest, and the more of them, were made by a man who, previous to that time, had not moved a step for months.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 119 (Phila.).
1852. The prisoner, who made tracks, and was never heard of afterwards.—D. L. Roath, ‘Solomon Slug, &c.,’ p. 157 (N.Y.).
1856. I hurried out and made tracks straight for the White House.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 451 (1860).
1858. I saw there was no time to lose, and in hot haste made tracks for the street-door.—Knick. Mag., li. 3 (Jan.).
1866. As soon as I can sell out my improvements, I shall make tracks.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 367.
