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+Project Gutenberg's The Boy With the U. S. Foresters, by Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Boy With the U. S. Foresters
+
+Author: Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
+Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18874]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE GIANTS OF THE FOREST AND THE MEN WHO SAFEGUARD THEM.
+
+_Photography by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+U. S. SERVICE SERIES.
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS
+
+BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
+
+With Thirty-eight Illustrations from Photographs taken by the U. S.
+Forest Service
+
+BOSTON
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+To My Son Roger's Friend
+
+WILBUR UFFORD
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Much of the wilderness is yet but little trod. Great stretches of virgin
+forest still remain within whose dim recesses nothing is changed since
+the days the Indians dwelt in them. The mystery and the adventure are
+not sped, the grandeur and the companionship still pulse among the
+glades, the "call of the wild" is an unceasing cry, and to that call the
+boy responds.
+
+But if this impulse to return to the shelter of the wilds be still so
+strong, how greatly more intense does it become when we awaken to the
+fact that the forest needs our help even more than we need its sense of
+freedom. When we perceive that the fate of these great belts of untamed
+wilderness lies in the hands of a small group of men whose mastery is
+absolute, when first we realize that national benefits--great almost
+beyond the believing--are intrusted to these men, surely Desire and
+Duty leap to grip hands and pledge themselves to the service of the
+forests of our land. To breathe the magnificent spaces of the West, to
+reveal the wealth and beauty of our great primeval woods, to acclaim the
+worth of the men who administer them, and to show splendid possibilities
+to a lad of grit and initiative is the aim and purpose of
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+ENTERING THE SERVICE
+
+CHAPTER II
+PUTTING A STOP TO GUN-PLAY
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE FIGHT IN THE COULEE
+
+CHAPTER IV
+PICKING A LIVELY BRONCHO
+
+CHAPTER V
+A TUSSLE WITH A WILD-CAT
+
+CHAPTER VI
+IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST
+
+CHAPTER VII
+WILBUR IN HIS OWN CAMP
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+DOWNING A GIANT LUMBERJACK
+
+CHAPTER IX
+A HARD FOE TO CONQUER
+
+CHAPTER X
+A FOURTH OF JULY PERIL
+
+CHAPTER XI
+AMIDST A CATTLE STAMPEDE
+
+CHAPTER XII
+ALMOST TRAMPLED TO DEATH
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+HOW THE FOREST WON A GREAT DOCTOR
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+A ROLLING CLOUD OF SMOKE
+
+CHAPTER XV
+THE FOREST ABLAZE
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+IN THE MIDST OF A SEA OF FIRE
+
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The Giants of the Forest and the Men Who Safeguard Them
+A Forest Fire out of Control
+Good Forestry Management
+Bad Forestry Management
+The Tie-cutters' Boys
+Deforested and Washed Away
+As Bad as Anything in China
+How Young Forests are Destroyed
+Where Sheep are Allowed
+Cowboys at the Round-up
+Patrolling a Coyote Fence
+Reducing the Wolf Supply
+Where Ben and Mickey Burned the Brush
+The Cabin of the Old Ranger
+Stamping It Government Property
+Wilbur's Own Camp
+Just about Ready to Shoot
+Train-load from One Tree
+Wilbur's Own Bridge
+Where the Supervisor Stayed
+Measuring a Fair-sized Tree
+Running a Telephone Line
+Nursery for Young Trees
+Plantation of Young Trees
+Sowing Pine Seed
+Planting Young Trees
+What Tree-planting Will Do
+The First Conservation Expert
+Sand Burying a Pear Orchard
+No Water, No Forests. No Forests, No Water
+With Water!
+"That's One Painter Less, Anyhow!"
+"Smoke! And How am I Going to Get There?"
+"Keep It from Spreading, Boys!"
+"Get Busy Now, When It Breaks into the Open!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ENTERING THE SERVICE
+
+
+"Hey, Wilbur, where are you headed for?"
+
+The boy addressed, who had just come through the swing-doors of an
+office building in Washington, did not slacken his pace on hearing the
+question, but called back over his shoulder:
+
+"To the forest, of course. Come along, Fred."
+
+"But--" The second speaker stopped short, and, breaking into a run,
+caught up with his friend in a few steps.
+
+"You certainly seem to be in a mighty big hurry to get there," he said.
+
+"We don't loaf on our service," answered the boy with an air of pride.
+
+His friend broke into a broad grin. He had known Wilbur Loyle for some
+time, and was well aware of his enthusiastic nature.
+
+"How long has it been 'our' service?" he queried, emphasizing the
+pronoun.
+
+"Ever since I was appointed," rejoined Wilbur exultantly.
+
+"I'm glad the appointment has had time to soak in; it didn't take long,
+did it?" Wilbur flushed a little, and his chum, seeing this, went on
+laughingly: "Don't mind my roasting, old man, only you were 'way up in
+the clouds."
+
+The boy's expression cleared instantaneously, and he laughed in reply.
+
+"I suppose I was," he said, "but it's great to feel you've got the thing
+you've been working for. As you know, Fred, I've been thinking of this
+for years; in fact, I've always wanted it, and I've worked hard to get
+it. And then the Chief Forester's fine; he's just fine; I liked him ever
+so much."
+
+"Did you have much chance to talk with him?"
+
+"Yes, quite a lot. I thought I was likely enough to meet him, and p'raps
+he would formally tell me I was appointed and then bow me out of the
+office. Not a bit of it. He told me all about the Service, showed me
+just what there was in it for the country, and I tell you what--he made
+me feel that I wanted to go right straight out on the street and get
+all the other boys to join."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, he showed me that the Forest Service gave a fellow a chance to
+make good even better than in the army or the navy. There you have to
+follow orders mainly; there's that deadly routine besides, and you don't
+get much of a chance to think for yourself; but in the Forest Service a
+chap is holding down a place of trust where he has a show to make good
+by working it out for himself."
+
+"Sounds all right," said the older boy. "Anyway, I'm glad if you're
+glad."
+
+"What I like about it," went on Wilbur, "is the bigness of the whole
+thing and the chance a chap has to show what he's made of. Glad? You bet
+I'm glad!"
+
+"You weren't so sure whether you were going to like it or not when you
+went in to see about it," said Fred.
+
+"Oh, yes, I was. I knew I was going to like it all right. But I didn't
+know anything about where I might be sent or how I would be received."
+
+"I think it's just ripping," said his friend, "that it looks so good to
+you, starting out. It makes a heap of difference, sometimes, how a thing
+begins."
+
+"It surely does. Right now, the whole thing seems too good to be true."
+
+"Well," said the other, "as long as it strikes you that way I suppose
+you're satisfied now for all the grind you did preparing for it. But I
+don't believe it would suit me. It might be all right to be a Forest
+Ranger, but you told me one time that you had to start in as a Fire
+Guard, a sort of Fire Policeman, didn't you?"
+
+"Sure!"
+
+"Well, that doesn't sound particularly exciting."
+
+"Why not? What more excitement do you want than a forest fire! Isn't
+that big enough for you?"
+
+"The fire would be all right," answered the older boy, "but it's the
+watching and waiting for it that would get me."
+
+"You can't expect to have adventures every minute anywhere," said
+Wilbur, "but even so, you're not standing on one spot like a sailor in a
+crow's nest, waiting for something to happen; you're in the saddle,
+riding from point to point all day long, sometimes when there is a
+trail and sometimes when there isn't, out in the real woods, not in
+poky, stuffy city streets. You know, Fred, I can't stand the city; I
+always feel as if I couldn't breathe."
+
+"All right, Wilbur," said the other, "it's your own lookout, I suppose.
+Me for the city, though."
+
+Just then, and before Fred could make any further reply, a hand was laid
+on Wilbur's shoulder, and the lad, looking around, found the Chief
+Forester walking beside them.
+
+"Trying to make converts already, Loyle?" he asked with a smile, nodding
+pleasantly to the lad's companion.
+
+"I was trying to, sir," answered the boy, "but I don't believe Fred
+would ever make one of us."
+
+The Chief Forester restrained all outward trace of amusement at the
+lad's unconscious coupling of the head of the service and the newest and
+youngest assistant, and, turning to the older boy, said questioningly:
+
+"Why not, Fred?"
+
+"I was just saying to Wilbur, sir," he replied in a stolid manner, "that
+a Forest Guard's life didn't sound particularly exciting. It might be
+all right when a fire came along, but I should think that it would be
+pretty dull waiting for it, week after week."
+
+"Not exciting enough?" The boys were nearly taken off their feet by the
+energy of the speaker. "Not when every corner you turn may show you
+smoke on the horizon? Not when every morning finds you at a different
+part of the forest and you can't get there quick enough to convince
+yourself that everything is all right? Not when you plunge down ravines,
+thread your way through and over fallen timber, and make up time by a
+sharp gallop wherever there's a clearing, knowing that every cabin you
+pass is depending for its safety on your care? And then that is only a
+small part of the work. If you can't find excitement enough in that, you
+can't find it in anything."
+
+"Yes--" began Fred dubiously, but the Chief Forester continued:
+
+"And as for the responsibility! I tell you, the forest is the place for
+that. We need men there, not machines. On the men in the forest millions
+of dollars' worth of property depends. More than that, on the care of
+the Forest Guards hangs perhaps the stopping of a forest fire that
+otherwise would ravage the countryside, kill the young forest, denude
+the hills of soil, choke with mud the rivers that drain the denuded
+territory, spoil the navigable harbors, and wreck the prosperity of all
+the towns and villages throughout that entire river's length."
+
+"I hadn't realized there was so much in it," replied Fred, evidently
+struck with the Forester's earnestness.
+
+"You haven't any idea of how much there is in it. Not only for the work
+itself, but for you. Wild horses can't drag a man out of the Service
+once he's got in. It has a fascination peculiarly its own. The eager
+expectancy of vast spaces, the thrill of adventure in riding off to
+parts where man seldom treads, and the magnificent independence of the
+frontiersman, all these become the threads of which your daily life is
+made."
+
+"It sounds fine when you put it that way, sir," said Fred, his eyes
+kindling at the picture. "But it's hardly like that at first, is it?"
+
+"Certainly it is! Does the life of a fireman in a big city fire
+department strike you as being interesting or exciting?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir!"
+
+"It isn't to be compared with that of the Forest Guard. A city fireman
+is only one of a company huddled together in a little house, not
+greatly busy until the fire telegraph signal rings. But suppose there
+were only one fireman for the whole city, that he alone were responsible
+for the safety of every house, that instead of telegraphic signaling he
+must depend on his trusty horse to carry him to suitable vantage points,
+and on his eyesight when there; suppose that he knew there was a
+likelihood of fire every hour out of the twenty-four, and that during
+the season he could be sure of two or three a week, don't you think that
+fireman would have a lively enough time of it?"
+
+"He surely would," said Wilbur.
+
+"Aside from the fact that there are not as many people involved, that's
+not unlike a Forest Guard's position. I tell you, he's not sitting
+around his shack trying to kill time." Then, turning sharply to the
+older boy, the Chief Forester continued:
+
+"What do you want to be?"
+
+"I had wanted to be a locomotive engineer, sir," was the boy's reply,
+"but now I think I'll stay in the city."
+
+"It was the excitement of the life that appealed to you, was it?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I guess so."
+
+"True, there's a good deal of responsibility there, when you stand with
+your hand on the throttle of a fast express, knowing that the lives of
+the passengers are in your hand. There's a good deal of pride, too, in
+steering a vessel through a dangerous channel or in a stormy sea;
+there's a thrill of power when you sight a big gun and know that if you
+were in warfare the defense of your country might lie in your skill and
+aim. But none of these is greater than the sense of power and trust
+reposing in the men of the Forest Service, to whom Uncle Sam gives the
+guardianship and safe-keeping of millions of acres of his property and
+the lives of thousands of his citizens."
+
+The Chief Forester watched the younger of his companions, who was
+striding along the Washington street, and casting rapid glances from
+building to building as he went along, as though he expected to see
+flame and smoke pouring from every window, and that the city's safety
+lay in his hands. Smiling slightly, very slightly, and addressing
+himself to the older boy, although it was for the benefit of his new
+assistant that he was speaking, the Forester continued:
+
+"It's really more like the work of a trusted army scout than anything
+else. In the old days of Indian warfare,"--both boys gave a quick start
+of increased attention--"the very finest men and the most to be trusted
+were the scouts. They were men of great bravery, of undaunted loyalty,
+of great wariness, and filled with the spirit of dashing adventure. They
+were men who took their lives in their own hands. Going before the main
+body of the army, single-handed, if need be, they would stave off the
+attacks of Indian foes and would do battle with outposts and pickets. If
+the force were too great, they would map out the lay of the land and
+devise a strategical plan of attack, then, without rest or food often,
+would steal back to the main body, and, laying their information in the
+hands of the general, would act as guides if he ordered a forward
+movement."
+
+"But how--" interrupted Fred.
+
+"I was just coming to that," replied the Forester in response to his
+half-uttered query. "A Forest Guard is really a Forest Scout. There have
+been greater massacres at the hands of the Fire Tribe than from any
+Indian tribe that ever roamed the prairies. Hundreds, yes, thousands of
+lives were lost in the days before the Forest Service was in existence
+by fires which Forest Scouts largely could have prevented. Why, I myself
+can recall seeing a fire in which nearly a thousand and a half persons
+perished."
+
+"In one fire?"
+
+"Just in one fire. What would you think if you were told that in a
+forest in front of you were several thousand savages, all with their
+war-paint on, waiting a chance to break forth on the villages of the
+plain, that you had been chosen for the post of honor in guarding that
+strip of plain, and that the lives of those near by depended on your
+alertness? If they had picked you out for that difficult and important
+post, do you think that you would go and stand your rifle up against a
+tree and look for some soft nice mossy bank on which to lie down and go
+to sleep?"
+
+"I'd stay on the job till I dropped," answered Wilbur quickly and
+aggressively.
+
+"There's really very little difference between the two positions," said
+the Chief Forester. "No band of painted savages can break forth from a
+forest with more appalling fury than can a fire, none is more difficult
+to resist, none can carry the possibility of torture to its hapless
+victims more cruelly, none be so deaf to cries of mercy as a fire.
+Instead of keeping your ears open for a distant war-whoop, you have to
+keep your eyes open for the thin up-wreathing curl of smoke by day, or
+the red glow and flickering flame at night, which tells that the time
+has come for you to show what stuff you are made of. On the instant must
+you start for the fire, though it may be miles away, crossing, it may
+be, a part of the forest through which no trail has been made, plunging
+through streams which under less urgency would make you hesitate to try
+them, single-handed and 'all on your own,' to fight Uncle Sam's battles
+against his most dangerous and most insistent foe."
+
+"But if you can't put it out?" suggested Fred.
+
+"It has got to be put out," came the sharp reply, with an insistence of
+manner that told even more than the words. "There isn't anything else to
+it. If you have to get back to headquarters or send word there, if all
+the Rangers in the forest have to be summoned, if you have to ride to
+every settlement, ranch, and shack on the range, yes, if you have to
+rouse up half the State, this one thing is sure--the fire has got to be
+put out."
+
+"But can you get help?"
+
+"Nearly always. In the first place, the danger is mutual and everybody
+near the forest or in it will suffer if the fire spreads. In the
+second place, the Service is ready to pay men a fair wage for the time
+consumed in putting out a fire, and even the Ranger has the right to
+employ men to a limited extent. Sometimes the blaze can be stopped
+without great difficulty, at other times it will require all the
+resources available under the direction of the Forest Supervisor, but in
+the first resort it depends largely upon the Guard. A young fellow who
+is careless in such a post as that is as great a traitor to his country
+as a soldier would be who sold to the enemy the plans of the fort he was
+defending, or a sailor who left the wheel while a battle-ship was
+threading a narrow and rocky channel."
+
+"What starts these forest fires, sir?" asked Fred.
+
+"All sorts of things, but most of them arise from one common
+cause--carelessness. There are quite a number of instances in which
+fires have been started by lightning, but they are few in number as
+compared with those due to human agency. The old tale of fires being
+caused by two branches of a dead tree rubbing against each other is, of
+course, a fable."
+
+"But I should think any one would know enough not to start a forest
+fire," exclaimed the older boy. "I'm not much on the woods, but I think
+I know enough for that."
+
+"It isn't deliberate, it's careless," repeated the Forester. "Sometimes
+a camper leaves a little fire smoldering when he thinks the last spark
+is out; sometimes settlers who have to burn over their clearings allow
+the blaze to get away from them; when Indians are in the neighborhood
+they receive a large share of the blame, and the hated tramp is always
+quoted as a factor of mischief. In earlier days, sparks from locomotives
+were a constant danger, and although the railroad companies use a great
+many precautions now to which formerly they paid no heed, these sparks
+and cinders are still a prolific cause of trouble. And beside this
+carelessness, there is a good deal of inattention and neglect. The
+settlers will let a little fire burn for days unheeded, waiting for a
+rain to come along and put it out, whereas if a drought ensues and a
+high wind comes up, a fire may arise that will leap through the forest
+and leave them homeless, and possibly even their own lives may have to
+pay the penalty of their recklessness."
+
+"But what I don't understand," said Fred, "is how people get caught.
+It's easy enough to see how a forest could be destroyed, but I should
+think that every one could get out of the way easily enough. It must
+take a tree a long while to burn, even after it gets alight, especially
+if it's a big one."
+
+"A big forest fire, fanned by a high wind, and in the dry season,"
+answered the Chief Forester, "could catch the fastest runner in a few
+minutes. The flames repeatedly have been known to overtake horses on the
+gallop, and where there are no other means of escape the peril is
+extreme."
+
+"But will green trees burn so fast?" the older boy queried in surprise.
+"I should have thought they were so full of sap that they wouldn't burn
+at all."
+
+"The wood and foliage of coniferous trees like spruce, fir, and pine are
+so full of turpentine and resin that they burn like tinder. The heat is
+almost beyond the power of words to express. The fire does not seem to
+burn in a steady manner, the flames just breathe upon an immense tree
+and it becomes a blackened skeleton which will burn for hours.
+
+"The actual temperature in advance of the fire is so terrific that the
+woods begin to dry and to release inflammable vapors before the flames
+reach them, when they flash up and add their force to the fiery
+hurricane. It is almost unbelievable, too, the way a crown-fire will
+jump. Huge masses of burning gas will be hurled forth on the wind and
+ignite the trees two and three hundred yards distant. Fortunately, fires
+of this type are not common, most of the blazes one is likely to
+encounter being ground fires, which are principally harmful in that they
+destroy the forest floor."
+
+"But I should have thought," said Wilbur, "that such fires could only
+get a strong hold in isolated parts where nobody lives."
+
+"Not at all. Sometimes they begin quite close to the settlements, like
+the destructive fire at Hinckley, Minnesota, in 1894, which burned
+quietly for a week, and could have been put out by a couple of men
+without any trouble; but sometimes they start in the far recesses of the
+forest and reach their full fury very quickly. Of course, every fire,
+even the famous Peshtigo fire, started as a little bit of a blaze which
+either of you two boys could have put out."
+
+"How big a fire was that, sir?" asked Fred.
+
+"It covered an area of over two thousand square miles."
+
+"Great Caesar!" ejaculated Wilbur after a rapid calculation, "that would
+be a strip twenty miles wide and a hundred miles long."
+
+The Chief Forester nodded.
+
+"It wiped the town of Peshtigo entirely off the map," he said. "The
+people were hemmed in, ringed by fire on every side, and out of a
+population of two thousand, scarcely five hundred escaped. Flight was
+hopeless and rescue impossible."
+
+"And could this have been stopped after it got a hold at all?" asked
+Wilbur seriously, realizing the gravity of the conditions that some day
+he might have to face. "Could not something have been done?"
+
+"It could have been prevented," said the Chief Forester fiercely, "and
+as I said, in the first few hours either one of you boys could have put
+it out. But there have been many others like it since, and probably
+there will be many others yet to come. Even now, there are hundreds of
+towns and villages near forest lands utterly unprovided with adequate
+fire protection. Some of them are near our national forests, and it is
+our business to see that no danger comes to them.[1] Think of a fire
+like that of Peshtigo, think that if it had been stopped at the very
+beginning a thousand and a half lives would have been saved, and then
+ask yourself whether the work of a Forest Guard is not just about as
+fine a thing as any young fellow can do."
+
+[Footnote 1: While this volume was in the press, forest fires of the
+utmost violence broke out in Idaho, Washington, and Montana. Over two
+hundred lives were lost, many of them of members of the Forest Service,
+and hundreds of thousands of acres of timber were destroyed.]
+
+Wilbur turned impulsively to his chum.
+
+"You'll just have to join us, Fred," he said. "I don't see how any one
+that knows anything about it can keep out. You could go to a forestry
+school this summer and start right in to get ready for it."
+
+"I'll think about it," said the older boy.
+
+The Chief Forester was greatly pleased with the lad's eagerness to
+enroll his friend, and, turning to him, continued:
+
+"I don't want you to think it's all fire-fighting in the forest, though,
+Loyle; so I'll give you an idea of some of the other opportunities which
+will come your way in forest work. I suppose both of you boys hate a
+bully? I know I used to when I was at school."
+
+"I think," said Wilbur impetuously, "that a bully's just about the worst
+ever."
+
+"I do, too," joined in Fred.
+
+"Well, you'll have a chance to put down a lot of bullying. You look
+surprised, eh? You don't see what bullying has to do with forestry? It
+has, a great deal, and I'll show you how. I suppose you know that a
+forest is a good deal like a school?"
+
+"Well, no," admitted Wilbur frankly, "I don't quite see how."
+
+"A forest is made up of a lot of different kind of trees, isn't it, just
+as a school is made up of a lot of boys? And each of these trees has an
+individuality, just in the same way that each boy has an individuality.
+That, of course, is easy to see. But what is more important, and much
+less known, is that just as the school as a whole gets to have a certain
+standard, so does the forest as a whole."
+
+"That seems queer," remarked Fred.
+
+"Perhaps it does, but it's true none the less. In many schools there are
+some boys bigger than others, but who are not good for as much, and
+they're always picking at the others and crowding them down. In the
+same way in a forest there are always some worthless trees, trying to
+crowd out the ones which are of more value. As the trees of better value
+are always sought for their timber, that gives the worthless stuff a
+good chance to get ahead. One of the duties of a Forester, looking after
+his section of the forest, is to see that every possible chance is given
+to the good over the bad."
+
+"It's really like having people to deal with!" cried Fred in surprise.
+"It sounds as if a tree were some kind of a human being."
+
+"There are lots of people," said the Chief Forester, "who think of trees
+and speak of trees just exactly as if they were people like themselves.
+And it isn't even only the growing of the right kind of trees, but there
+are lots of ways of handling them under different conditions and at
+different ages. Thus, a Forester must be able to make his trees grow in
+height up to a certain stage, then stop their further growth upwards and
+make them put on diameter."
+
+"But how can you get a tree to grow in a certain way?" asked Fred in
+utter amazement.
+
+"Get Loyle here to tell you all about it. I suppose you learned that at
+the Ranger School, didn't you?" he added, turning to the younger boy.
+
+"Yes, sir. We had a very interesting course in silviculture."
+
+"But just to give you a rough idea, Fred," continued the Forester, "you
+know that some trees need a lot of light. Consequently, if a number of
+young trees are left fairly close together, they will all grow up
+straight as fast as they can, without putting out any branches near the
+bottom, and all their growth will be of height."
+
+"See, Fred," interjected Wilbur, "that's why saplings haven't got any
+twigs except just at the top."
+
+"Just so," said the Forester. "Presently," he continued, "as these young
+trees grow up together, one will overtop the rest. If the adjacent small
+trees be cut down when this tallest tree has reached a good height, it
+will spread at the top in order to get as much sunlight as possible. In
+order to carry a large top the diameter of the trunk must increase. So,
+by starting the trees close together and allowing one of them to develop
+alone after a certain height has been reached, the Forester has
+persuaded that tree first to grow straight and high, and then to
+develop girth, affording the finest and most valuable kind of lumber.
+That's just one small example of the scores of possibilities that lie in
+the hands of the expert Forester. By proper handling a forest can be
+made to respond to training, as I said, just as a school might do."
+
+"I can tell you a lot more things, Fred, just as wonderful as that,"
+commented Wilbur.
+
+The Chief Forester nodded.
+
+"I'd like to hear you myself," he said; "I'd rather listen to something
+about trees than eat. But I've got to go now. I'll see you again soon,
+Loyle," and with a parting good wish to both boys, he crossed the street
+and went on his way.
+
+
+[Illustration: A FOREST FIRE OUT OF CONTROL.
+
+Conditions which tax man's resources to the uttermost, and where peril
+is the price of victory.
+
+_Courtesy of U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: GOOD FORESTRY MANAGEMENT.
+
+All the smaller wood is used for cord-wood, the brush is in piles ready
+for burning, and the young trees are left to grow up into a new forest.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: BAD FORESTRY MANAGEMENT.
+
+Forest cut clear and burned over, all the young growth destroyed, and
+nothing left except costly replanting.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PUTTING A STOP TO GUN-PLAY
+
+
+Wilbur was sitting in the writing-room of the hotel where he was staying
+while in Washington, just finishing a letter home telling of his
+good-fortune and his appointment, when a bell-boy came to tell him that
+his uncle, Mr. Masseth, was downstairs waiting to see him. This uncle
+had been a great inspiration to Wilbur, for he was prominent in the
+Geological Survey, and had done some wonderful work in the Canyon of the
+Colorado. Wilbur hurried down at once.
+
+"Congratulations!" the geologist said, as soon as the boy appeared. "So
+you came through with flying colors, I hear."
+
+"Every one was just as fine as could be," answered the lad. "But how did
+you know about it, uncle?"
+
+"You wrote me that you were going to call on the Chief Forester to-day,
+and so I took the trouble to telephone to one of the men in the office
+who would be likely to know the result of your interview."
+
+"Isn't it bully?"
+
+"Yes," said the older man with a quiet laugh, "I think it is 'bully,' as
+you call it. But I didn't call only to congratulate you; I thought
+perhaps you would like to come with me to-night and meet some of the men
+in the Forest Service who are really doing things out West. If you do,
+there's no time to waste."
+
+"You bet I do," the boy replied hastily. "But what is it all about?"
+
+"It's a lecture on forestry in China, but it happens to come at the same
+time as a meeting of the District Foresters, so they're all in town.
+Trot along upstairs and get your hat, and we can talk about it on the
+way."
+
+The geologist sauntered over to an acquaintance who was standing in the
+hotel lobby near by, but he had hardly exchanged half a dozen sentences
+with him when Wilbur reappeared, ready to go.
+
+"You see," said Masseth as they left the hotel, "it is a good plan for
+you to meet as many of the leaders of your profession as you can, not
+only because their friendship may be useful to you, nor yet only because
+they are all pleasant fellows, but because forestry is a profession, a
+very large and complex one, and it is a revelation sometimes to see what
+can be made of it. I know myself, whenever I meet a great geologist I
+always feel a little better to think I can say, 'I am a geologist, too.'
+So you, I hope, may be able to say some day, 'I am a Forester, too.'"
+
+"I'm one now," said Wilbur elatedly.
+
+"You're not, you're only a cub yet," corrected his uncle sharply; "don't
+let your enthusiasm run away with your good sense. You are no more a
+Forester yet than a railroad bill-clerk is a transportation expert."
+
+"All right, uncle," said Wilbur, "I'll swallow my medicine and take that
+all back. I'm not even the ghost of a Forester--yet."
+
+"You will meet the real article to-night. As I told you, the District
+Foresters are East for a conference, and this lecture is given before
+the Forestry Association. So you will have a good chance of sizing up
+the sort of men you are likely to be with."
+
+"Will the Forest Supervisors be there, too?"
+
+"I should imagine not. There may be one or two in town. But the
+Supervisors alone would make quite a gathering if they were all here.
+There are over a hundred, are there not? You ought to know."
+
+"Just a hundred and forty-one now--about one to each forest."
+
+"And there are only six District Foresters?"
+
+"Yes. One is in Montana, one in Colorado, one in New Mexico, one in
+Utah, one in California, and one in Oregon. And they have under their
+charge, so I learned to-day, nearly two hundred million acres of land,
+or, in other words, territory larger than the whole state of Texas and
+five times as large as England and Wales."
+
+"I had forgotten the figures," said the geologist. "That gives each
+District Forester a little piece of land about the size of England to
+look after. And they can tell you, most of them, on almost every square
+mile of that region, approximately how much marketable standing timber
+may be found there, what kinds of trees are most abundant, and in what
+proportion, and roughly, how many feet of lumber can be cut to the acre.
+It's always been wonderful to me. That sort of thing takes learning,
+though, and you've got to dig, Wilbur, if you want to be a District
+Forester some day."
+
+"I'm going to get there some day, all right."
+
+"If you try hard enough, you may. By the way, there's one of them going
+in now. That's the house, on the other side of the Circle."
+
+The boy looked across the curve and scanned all the men going in the
+same direction, quite with a feeling of companionship. One of the men
+who overtook and passed them, giving a hearty greeting to Masseth as he
+went by, was Roger Doughty, a young fellow who had distinguished himself
+in the Geological Survey, having taken a trip from south to north of
+Alaska, and Wilbur's companion felt a twinge of regret that his nephew
+had not entered his own service.
+
+Wilbur, however, was always a "woods" boy, and even in his early
+childish days had been possessed with a desire to camp out. He had read
+every book he could lay hands on that dealt with "the great outdoors,"
+and would ten thousand times over rather have been Daniel Boone than
+George Washington. Seeing his intense pleasure in that life, his father
+had always allowed him to go off into the wilds for his holidays, and in
+consequence he knew many little tricks of woodcraft and how to make
+himself comfortable when the weather was bad. His father, who was a
+lawyer, had wanted him to enter that profession, but Wilbur had been so
+sure of his own mind, and was so persistent that at his request he had
+been permitted to go to the Colorado Ranger School. From this he had
+returned even more enthusiastic than before, and Masseth, seeing that by
+temperament Wilbur was especially fitted for the Forest Service, had
+urged the boy's father to allow him to enter for it, and did not attempt
+to conceal his satisfaction with Wilbur's success.
+
+"Why, Masseth, how did you get hold of Loyle?" asked the Chief Forester
+as the two came up the walk together.
+
+"Didn't you know he was my nephew?" was the surprised reply.
+
+"No," answered their host as they paused on the threshold, "he never
+said anything to me about it."
+
+The geologist looked inquiringly at his young relative.
+
+"I thought," said Wilbur, coloring, "that if I said anything about
+knowing you, before I was appointed, it would look as though I had done
+it to get a pull. I didn't think it would do me any good, anyhow; and
+even if it had, I felt that I'd rather not get anything that way."
+
+"It wouldn't have helped you a bit," said the Chief Forester, "and, as
+you see, you did not need it. I'm glad, too, that you did not mention it
+at the time." He nodded his appreciation of the boy's position as they
+passed into the room beyond.
+
+The place was thoroughly typical of the gathering and the occasion. The
+walls were hung with some magnificent trophies, elk and moose heads, one
+stuffed fish of huge size was framed beside the door, and there were
+numberless photographs of trees and forests, cross-sections of woods,
+and comparisons of leaves and seeds. Although in the heart of
+Washington, there was a breath and fragrance in the room, which, to the
+boy, seemed like old times in the woods. The men, too, that were
+gathered there showed themselves to be what they were--men who knew the
+great wide world and loved it. Every man seemed hearty in manner and
+thoroughly interested in whatever was going on.
+
+Masseth was called away, soon after they entered the room, and Wilbur,
+left to himself, sauntered about among the groups of talkers, looking at
+the various trophies hung on the walls. As he drew near to one of the
+smaller groups, however, he caught the word "gun-play," so he edged up
+to the men and listened. One of them, seeing the lad, moved slightly to
+one side as an unspoken invitation to be one of them, and Wilbur stepped
+up.
+
+The man who was speaking was comparing the present peaceful
+administration of the forests with the conditions that used to exist
+years ago, before the Service had been established, and when the Western
+"bad man" was at the summit of his power.
+
+"It was during the cattle and sheep war that a fellow had to be pretty
+quick on the draw," said one.
+
+"The Service had a good enough man for that, all right," suggested
+another member of the same group, "there wasn't any of them who could
+pull a bead quicker than our grazing Chief yonder." Wilbur turned and
+saw crossing the room a quiet-looking, spare man, light-complexioned,
+and apparently entirely inoffensive. "I guess they were ready enough to
+give him a wide berth when it came to gun-play."
+
+"Talking about the cattle war," said the first speaker, "the worst
+trouble I ever had, or rather, the one that I hated to go into most, was
+back in those days. I was on the old Plum Creek Timber Land Reserve,
+now a portion of the Pike National Forest. A timber trespass sometimes
+leads to a very pretty scrap, and a cattle mix-up usually spells 'War'
+with a capital 'W,' but this had both."
+
+"You get them that way sometimes," said a middle-aged, red-headed man,
+who was standing by.
+
+"Had some down your way, too, I reckon?"
+
+"Plenty of 'em. But go ahead with the yarn."
+
+"Well, this bunch that I'm speaking of had skipped out from Montana;
+they were 'wanted' there, and they had come down and started cutting
+railroad ties in a secluded canyon forming one of the branches of West
+Plum Creek. They were hated good and plenty, these same tie-cutters,
+because they had a reputation of being too handy with their guns, and
+consequently causing a decrease in the calf crop. The cattlemen used to
+drop in on them every once in a while, but the tie-cutters were foxy,
+and they were never caught with the goods. Of course, there was a moral
+certainty that they weren't buying meat, but nothing could be proved
+against them, and the interchanges of compliments, while lively and
+picturesque enough, never took the form of lead, although it was
+expected every time they met."
+
+"Had this been going on long?"
+
+"Several months, I reckon," answered the former Ranger, "before I heard
+of it. This was just before that section of the country was taken over
+by the Forest Service. As soon as notice was given that the district in
+question was to be placed under government regulations, a deputation to
+the tie-cutters loped down on their cow-ponies to convey the cheerful
+news. Expressing, of course, the profoundest sympathy for them, the
+spokesman of the cattle group volunteered the information that they
+could wrap up their axes in tissue paper, tie pink ribbons on their
+rifles and go home, because any one caught cutting timber on the
+reserve, now that it was a reserve, would go to the Pen for fifteen
+years."
+
+"What a bluff!"
+
+"Bluff it certainly was. It didn't work, either. One of the tie-cutters
+in reply suggested that the cowmen should go back and devote their time
+to buying Navajo saddle-blankets and silver-mounted sombreros, since
+ornamenting the landscape was all they had to do in life; another
+replied that if a government inspector ever set eyes on their cattle
+he'd drive them off the range as a disgrace to the State; and a third
+capped the replies with the terse answer that no ten United States
+officers and no hundred and ten cattlemen could take them out alive."
+
+"That wouldn't make the cow-camp feel happy a whole lot," remarked the
+red-headed man.
+
+"There wasn't any shooting, though, as I said before, though just how it
+kept off I never rightly could understand. At all events they fixed it
+so that we heard of it in a hurry. Then both sides awaited developments.
+The tie-cutters kept their hands off the cattle for a while, and the
+cowmen had no special business with railroad ties, so that, aside from
+snorting at each other, no special harm was done.
+
+"But, of course, the timber trespass question had to be investigated,
+and the Supervisor, who was then located at Colorado Springs, arranged
+to make the trip with me to the tie-cutters' camp from a small station
+about fifty miles north of the Springs. I met him at the station as
+prearranged. We were just about to start when a telegram was handed him
+calling him to another part of the forest in a hurry."
+
+"Tough luck," said one of the listeners.
+
+"It surely was--for me," commented the narrator. "The camp to which we
+had intended going was twenty-six miles into the mountains, and going up
+there alone didn't appeal to me a little bit. However, the Supervisor
+told me to start right out, to get an idea of how much timber had been
+cut, and in what kind of shape the ground had been left, and in short,
+to 'nose around a little,' as he put it himself."
+
+"That was hardly playing the game, sending you up there alone," said one
+of the men.
+
+"I thought at the time that it wasn't, but what could he do? The matter
+had to be investigated, and he had been sent for and couldn't come with
+me. But he was considerate enough, strongly urging me not to get killed,
+'as Rangers were scarce.'"
+
+"That was considerate!"
+
+"Yes, wasn't it? But early the next morning I started for the canyon
+where the outlaws were said to be in hiding. The riding was fair, so I
+made good time on the trail and got to the entrance of the canyon about
+the middle of the day. A few hundred feet from the fork of the stream I
+came to a little log cabin, occupied by a miner and his family. I took
+lunch with them and told them my errand. Both the man and his wife
+begged me not to go up to the camp alone, as they had heard the
+tie-cutters threaten to kill at sight any stranger found on their land."
+
+"Why didn't you propose that the miner should go up to the camp with
+you?"
+
+"I did. But he remarked that up to date he had succeeded in keeping out
+of the cattlemen-lumbermen trouble, and that he was going to keep right
+along keeping out. He suggested that if there was going to be any
+funeral in the immediate vicinity he wasn't hankering to take any more
+prominent part than that of a mourner, and that the title-role of such a
+performance wasn't any matter of envy with him. However, I succeeded in
+persuading him to come part of the way with me, and secured his promise
+that he would listen for any shooting, and if I should happen to resign
+involuntarily from the Service by the argument of a bullet, that he
+would volunteer as a witness in the case."
+
+"I don't altogether blame him, you know," said the red-headed man; "you
+said he had a wife there, and interfering with other folks' doings isn't
+healthy."
+
+"I didn't blame him either," said the first speaker, "but I would have
+liked to have him along. A little farther up the canyon I came to a
+recently built log cabin, covered with earth. An old man stood at the
+door and I greeted him cheerily. We had a moment's chat, and then I
+asked him the way to the cabin where the tie-cutters lived. Judge of my
+surprise when he told me this was their cabin, and that they lived with
+him. By the time I had secured this much information the two younger men
+had come out, and one of them, Tom, wanted to know what I was after. I
+stated my business, briefly. There was a pause.
+
+"'Ye 'low as ye're agoin' to jedge them ties,' he said slowly. 'Wa'al I
+'low we'll sort 'er go along. Thar's a heap o' fow-el in these yar
+parts, stranger, an' I 'low I'll take a gun.'
+
+"The other brother, who seemed more taciturn, turned and nodded to two
+youngsters who had come out of the cabin while Tom was speaking. The
+elder of the two, a boy about thirteen years old, went into the shack
+and returned in a moment bringing out two rifles. I turned the broncho's
+head up the trail, but Tom interposed.
+
+"'I 'low,' he said, 'that ye'll hev ter leave yer horse-critter right
+hyar; thar ain't much of er trail up the mount'n.'
+
+"I wasn't particularly anxious to get separated from my horse, and that
+cabin was just about the last place I would have chosen to leave him;
+but there was no help for it, and as I would have to dismount anyway to
+get into the timber, I slipped out of the saddle and put the hobbles on.
+But when we came to start, the two men wanted me to go first. I balked
+at that. I told them that I wasn't in the habit of walking up a mountain
+trail in front of two men with guns, and that they would have to go
+first and show the way. They grumbled, but, seeing that I meant it, they
+turned and silently walked up the mountainside ahead of me.
+
+"They stopped at an old prospect shaft that was filled to the brim with
+water, and wanted me to come close to the hole and look at it, telling
+me some cock-and-bull story about it, and calling my attention to some
+supposed outcrop of rich ore that could be seen under the water. But I
+refused flatly to go a step nearer than I then was, telling them that I
+wished to get to those ties immediately.
+
+"At an old cabin they halted again, and Tom wanted to know which was
+'the best shot in the bunch.' I was not in favor of trying guns or
+anything of that sort, especially when there seemed no reason for it,
+knowing how easy it would be for a shot to go wide, and so I urged them
+to lead on to the ties. But Tom insisted upon shooting, and though his
+brother did not seem quite to follow the other's plans, still he chimed
+in with him, and the only thing I could do was to agree with what grace
+I could. But I decided to make this a pretext for disposing of some of
+their superfluous ammunition.
+
+"Pulling my six-shooter, I told Jim to put an old sardine can, that was
+lying on the ground near by, on the stump of a tree about twenty-five or
+thirty yards distant. Then I told him to lean his rifle against the
+cabin while placing the can on the tree. This he did. I stepped over to
+the cabin and took the gun as though to look after it. Then I walked
+over to where Tom stood, telling him to blaze away at the can on the
+tree. While he was doing so I slipped the cartridges out of Jim's gun
+and put them in my pocket.
+
+"By the time that Tom had fired three shots Jim came up and I told the
+former to hand over the rifle and let his brother try. Quite readily he
+did so. Of course, there were only two cartridges left in the gun, for
+it was a half-magazine, but Jim expected to take the third shot with his
+own rifle. When he had fired twice, however, and reached out his hand
+for the other gun, I handed it to him with the remark that it was empty.
+For a minute or two things looked black, because both men saw that they
+had been tricked. But I had the drop on them, and since they were both
+disarmed I felt considerably easier."
+
+"How did it end up?" asked the red-haired listener.
+
+"It was easy enough after that, as long as I didn't turn my back to them
+or let either get too near. We went together and counted the ties,
+returning to the cabin where I had left my horse. When the tie-cutters
+found, however, that the cattlemen had deliberately exaggerated the
+penalty for timber trespass in the hope that they would resist and thus
+get themselves into serious trouble with the government, their anger was
+diverted from me. By joining in with them in a sweeping denunciation of
+the cow-camp, and by pointing out that no harsh measures were intended
+against them, they came to look on me as friend instead of foe."
+
+"What was done about the trespass?"
+
+"It was pretty early in the days of the Service, and, as you remember,
+we let them down easily at first so that no undue amount of friction
+should be caused. I think some small fine, purely nominal, was exacted,
+and the tie-cutters got into harmonious relations with the Supervisor
+later. But those same boys told me, just as I was starting for home,
+that they intended to drop me in that old prospect shaft, or, failing
+that, to pump me full of holes."
+
+The speaker had hardly finished when a scattering of groups and an
+unfolding of chairs took place and the lecturer for the evening was
+announced. He won Wilbur's heart at once by an appreciative story of a
+young Chinese boy, a civil service student in his native province, who
+had accompanied him on a portion of his trip through China in order to
+learn what might be done toward the improvement of his country.
+
+"He was a bright lad, this Fo-Ho," said the lecturer, "and it was very
+largely owing to him that I extended my trip a little and went to
+Fou-Ping. I visited Fo-Ho's family home, where the graves of his
+ancestors were--you know how powerful ancestor-worship still is in
+China. Such a scene of desolation I never saw, and, I tell you, I was
+sorry for the boy. There was the town that had been his father's home
+deserted and in ruins.
+
+"Two hundred years before, in this same place now so thickly strewn with
+ruins, there had been no one living, and the mountains were accounted
+impassable because of the dense forests. But in 1708 a Mongol horde
+under a powerful chieftain settled in the valley, and the timber began
+to be cut recklessly. Attracted by the fame of this chieftain, other
+tribes poured down into these valleys, until by 1720 several hundred
+thousand persons were living where thirty years before not a soul was to
+be seen. The cold winters of Mongolia drew heavily upon the fuel
+resources of the adjacent forests, and a disastrous fire stripped
+hundreds of square miles. Farther and farther afield the inhabitants had
+to go for fuel, until every stick which would burn had been swept clear;
+bleaker and more barren grew the vicinity, until at last the tribes had
+to decamp, and what was once a dense forest and next a smiling valley
+has become a hideous desert which even the vultures have forsaken."
+
+Masseth leaned over toward Wilbur and whispered:
+
+"You don't have to go as far away as China. There are some terrible
+cases of deforestation right here in the United States."
+
+The lecturer then launched into a description of the once great forests
+of China, and quoted the words of writers less than three centuries ago
+who depicted the great Buddhist monasteries hid deep in the heart of
+densely wooded regions. Then, with this realization of heavily forested
+areas in mind, there was flashed upon the screen picture after picture
+of desolation. Cities, once prosperous, were shown abandoned because the
+mountains near by had become deforested. Man could not live there
+because food could not grow without soil, and all the soil had been
+washed away from the slopes. The streams, once navigable, were choked up
+with the silt that had washed down. When rains came they acted as
+torrents, since there was no vegetation to hold the water and the lower
+levels became flooded.
+
+"Nature made the world a garden," said the speaker, "and man is making
+it a desert. Our children and our children's children for countless
+generations are to enjoy the gardens we leave, or bewail the deserts
+we create."
+
+Startling, too, was the manner in which the lecturer showed the unhappy
+fate of countries which an unthinking civilization had despoiled. The
+hills and valleys where grew the famous cedars of Lebanon are almost
+treeless now, and Palestine, once so luxuriant, is bare and lonely.
+Great cities flourished upon the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates where
+were the hanging gardens of Babylon and the great hunting parks of
+Nineveh, yet now the river runs silently between muddy banks, infertile
+and deserted, save for a passing nomad tribe. The woods of ancient
+Greece are not less ruined than her temples; the forests of Dalmatia
+whence came the timber that built the navies of the ancient world are
+now barren plateaus, shelterless and waste; and throughout a large part
+of southern Europe and northern Africa, man has transformed the smile of
+nature into a mask of inflexible severity.
+
+"But," said Wilbur, turning excitedly to his uncle, as soon as the
+lecturer had closed, "isn't there anything that can be done to make
+those places what they were before?"
+
+"Not often, if it is allowed to go too far," said the geologist. "It
+takes time, of course, for all the soil to be washed away. But wherever
+the naked rock is exposed the case is hopeless. You can't grow anything,
+even cactus, on a rock. Lichens, of course, may begin, but hundreds of
+thousands of years are required to make soil anew."
+
+"But if it's taken in time?"
+
+"Then you can reforest by planting. But that's slow and costly. It
+requires millions of dollars to replant a stretch of forest which would
+have renewed itself just by a little careful lumbering, for Nature is
+only too ready to do the work for nothing if given a fair chance."
+
+By this time the gathering had broken up in large part and a number of
+those who had come only to hear the lecture had gone. Some of the Forest
+Service men, however, were passing through the corridors to the
+dining-room. At the door Wilbur paused hesitatingly. He had not been
+invited to stay, but at the same time he felt that he could hardly leave
+without thanking his uncle, who at the time was strolling toward the
+other portion of the house, deeply engrossed in conversation. In this
+quandary the Chief Forester, all unknown to the lad, saw his
+embarrassment, and with the quick intuition so characteristic of the
+man, divined the cause.
+
+"Come along, Loyle, come along in," he said, "you're one of us now."
+
+Wilbur, with a grateful look, passed on into the reception-room. A
+moment later he heard his name called, and, turning, came face to face
+with a tall young fellow, bronzed and decisive looking.
+
+"My name's Nally," he said, "and I hear you're going to one of my
+forests. Mr. Masseth was telling me that you're his nephew. I guess
+we'll start right in by having our first feed together. This is hardly
+camping out," he added, looking around the well-appointed and handsome
+room, "but the grub shows that it's the Service all right."
+
+The District Forester motioned to the table which was heaped with dozens
+upon dozens of baked apples, flanked by several tall pitchers of milk.
+
+"There you have it," he continued, "back to nature and the simple life.
+It's all right to go through a Ranger School and to satisfy the powers
+that be about your fitness, but that isn't really getting to the inside
+of the matter. It's when you feel that you've had the chance to come
+right in and take the regular prescribed ritual of a baked apple and a
+glass of milk in the house of the Chief Forester that you can feel
+you're the real thing in the Service."
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TIE-CUTTERS' BOYS.
+
+Two young members of the outlaw gang which defied the cattle man and
+threatened the Forest Service.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: DEFORESTED AND WASHED AWAY.
+
+Example of laborious artificial terracing in China to save the little
+soil remaining.
+
+_Courtesy of U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: AS BAD AS ANYTHING IN CHINA.
+
+Final results of deforestation in Tennessee, due to cutting and to fumes
+from a copper smelter.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE FIGHT IN THE COULEE
+
+
+When, a few days later, Wilbur found himself standing on the platform of
+the little station at Sumber, with the cactus-clad Mohave desert about
+him and the slopes of the Sierra Nevada beyond, he first truly realized
+that his new life was beginning. His journey out from Washington had
+been full of interest because the District Forester had accompanied him
+the greater part of the way, and had taken the opportunity to explain
+how varied were the conditions that he would find in the Sequoia forest
+to which he had been assigned. In large measure the District Forester's
+especial interest, Wilbur realized, was due to the fact that Masseth had
+told him of the boy's intention to go to college and thence through the
+Yale Forestry School, having had beforehand training as Guard, and
+possibly later as Ranger.
+
+But, as the train pulled out of the station, and Wilbur looked over the
+sage-brush and sparse grass, seeming to dance under the shimmering
+heat-waves of the afternoon sun, he suddenly became conscious that the
+world seemed very large and that everything he knew was very far away.
+The strange sense of doubt as to whether he were really himself, a
+curious feeling that the desert often induces, swept over him, and he
+was only too ready to enter into conversation when a small, wiry man,
+with black hair and quick, alert eyes, came up to him with the rolling
+walk that betokens a life spent in the saddle, and said easily:
+
+"Howdy, pard!"
+
+The boy returned a friendly "Good-afternoon," and waited for the
+stranger to continue.
+
+"She looks some as if you was the whole pack on this deal," was the next
+remark.
+
+"Well," replied Wilbur, looking at him quizzically, "I wasn't conscious
+of being crowded here."
+
+The range-rider followed the boy's glance around the immediate
+neighborhood, noting the station agent and the two or three figures in
+front of the general store, who formed the sum of the visible
+population, and nodded.
+
+"Bein' the star performer, then," he went on, "it might be a safe bet
+that you was sort of prospectin' for the Double Bar J."
+
+"That was the name of the ranch," said the boy. "I was told to go there
+and get a couple of ponies."
+
+"An' how was you figurin' on gettin' to the ranch? Walkin'?"
+
+"Not if I could help it. And that," he added, pointing to the desert, "I
+should think would be mean stuff to walk on."
+
+"Mean she is," commented Wilbur's new acquaintance, "but even s'posin'
+that you did scare up a pony, how did you dope it out that you would hit
+up the right trail? This here country is plumb tricky. And the trail
+sort of takes a nap every once in a while and forgets to show up."
+
+"I didn't expect to find my way alone," said the boy. "If nobody had
+been here, I'd have found somebody to show me--"
+
+"Hold hard," said the cowboy, interrupting, "till I look over that
+layout. If you hadn't ha' found anybody, you'd ha' found somebody?
+Shuffle 'em up a bit, pard, and try a new deal."
+
+"But," continued Wilbur, not paying any attention to the interruption,
+"I fully expected that some one from the ranch would be here to meet
+me."
+
+"If all your conjectoors comes as near bein' accurate as that same,"
+said the other, "you c'd set up as a prophet and never call the turn
+wrong. Which I'm some attached to the ranch myself."
+
+"I thought you were, probably," said Wilbur, "and I'm much obliged to
+you, if you came to meet me."
+
+"That's all right! But if you're ready, maybe we'd better start
+interviewin' the scenery on the trail. How about chuck?"
+
+"Thanks," said the boy, "I had dinner on the car."
+
+"An' you're thirsty none?"
+
+"Not especially. But," he added, not wishing to offend his companion,
+"if you are, go ahead."
+
+"Well, if you don't mind," began the other, then he checked himself. "I
+guess I c'n keep from dyin' of a cracked throat until we get there," he
+added. "C'n you ride?"
+
+"Yes!" said Wilbur decisively.
+
+The cowboy turned half round to look at him with a dubious smile.
+
+"You surely answers that a heap sudden," he said. "An' I opine that's
+some risky as a general play."
+
+"Why?" asked the boy.
+
+"Bein' too sure in three-card Monte has been a most disappointin'
+experience to many a gent, an' has been most condoocive to transfers of
+ready cash."
+
+"But that's just guessing," said Wilbur. "I'm talking of what I know."
+
+"Like enough you never heard about Quick-Finger Joe?" queried the
+cowboy. "Over-confidence hastens his exit quite some."
+
+"No," answered Wilbur quickly, scenting a story, "I never even heard of
+him. Who was he?"
+
+"This same Joe," began the range-rider, "is a tow-haired specimen whose
+manly form decorates the streets of this here metropolis of Sumber that
+you've been admirin'. He has the name of bein' the most agile
+proposition on a trigger that ever shot the spots off a ten o' clubs. He
+makes good his reputation a couple of times, and then gets severely left
+alone. To him, one day, while he is standin' takin' a little
+refreshment, comes up a peaceful and inoffensive-lookin' stranger, who
+has drifted into town promiscuous-like in the course of the afternoon.
+He addresses Joe some like this:
+
+"'Which I hears with profound admiration that you're some frolicsome
+and speedy on gun-play?'
+
+"Joe, tryin' to hide his blushes, admits that his hand can amble for his
+hip right smart. Whereupon the amiable-appearin' gent makes some sort of
+comment, just what no one ever knew, but it seems tolerable superfluous
+an' sarcastic, an' instantaneous there's two shots. When the smoke
+clears away a little, Joe is observed to be occupyin' a horizontal
+position on the floor and showin' a pronounced indisposition to move.
+The stranger casually remarks:
+
+"'Gents, this round's on me. I shore hates to disturb your peaceful
+converse on a balmy evenin' like this yere in a manner so abrupt an'
+sudden-like. But he had to get his, some time, an' somebody's
+meditations would hev to be disturbed. This hyar varmint, gents, what is
+now an unopposed candidate for a funeral pow-wow, was a little too
+previous with his gun agin my younger brother. It's a case of plain
+justice, gents; my brother was without weapons, and he--' pointing to
+the figure on the floor, 'he knew it. Line up, gents, and give it a
+name!'"
+
+"What did they do to the stranger?" asked Wilbur eagerly, divided
+between admiration of the quickness of the action and consternation at
+the gravity of the result.
+
+"They compliments him some on the celerity of his shootin', and feels a
+heap relieved by Joe's perpetual absence. An' the moral o' this little
+tale is that you're hittin' a fast clip for trouble when you go around
+prompt and aggressive to announce your own virtoos. I'm not advancin'
+any criticism as to your shinin' talents in the way of ridin', pard, but
+you haven't been long enough in this here vale of tears to be what you
+might call experienced."
+
+"I've ridden a whole lot," said Wilbur, who was touchy on the point and
+proud of his horsemanship, "and while I don't say that there isn't a
+horse I can't ride, I can say that I've never seen one yet. I started in
+to ride pretty nearly as soon as I started to walk."
+
+"I don't want to mar your confidence none," replied the cowboy, "an' I
+likes a game sport who'll bet his hand to the limit, though I generally
+drops my stake on the other side. But if some mornin' you sh'd find the
+ground rearin' up and hittin' you mighty sudden, don't forget that I
+gave you a plain steer. Here's your cayuse."
+
+Wilbur had been a little disappointed that the cowboy should not have
+shown up as ornamentally as he had expected, not wearing goatskin
+"chaps" or rattlesnake hatbands, and not even having a gorgeous
+saddle-blanket on his pony, but the boy felt partly rewarded when he saw
+him just put his toe in the stirrup and seem to float into the saddle.
+The pony commenced dancing about in the most erratic way, but Wilbur
+noted that his companion seemed entirely unaware that the horse was not
+standing still, although his antics would have unseated any rider that
+the boy previously had seen. He was conscious, moreover, that his climb
+into his own saddle was very different from that which he had witnessed,
+but he really was a good rider for a boy, and felt quite at home as soon
+as they broke into the loping canter of the cow-pony.
+
+"I understood," said Wilbur as they rode along, "that I should meet the
+Ranger at the ranch. His name was given to me as Rifle-Eye Bill, because
+I was told he had been a famous hunter before he joined the Service. I
+thought at first you might be the Ranger, but he was described to me as
+being very tall."
+
+"Which he does look some like a Sahaura cactus on the Arizona deserts,"
+said the range-rider, "an' I surely favor him none. But that mistake of
+yours naterally brings it to me that I haven't what you might say
+introdooced myself. Which my baptismal handle is more interestin' than
+useful, an' I lays it by. So I'll just hand you the title under which I
+usually trots, bein' 'Bob-Cat Bob,' ridin' for the Double Bar J."
+
+"Not having risen to any later title," said Wilbur good-humoredly, "I've
+got to be satisfied with the one I started with. I'm generally called
+Wilbur."
+
+"Which is sure unfamiliar to me. I opine it's a new brand on the range."
+He flourished his sombrero in salute, so that his pony bucked twice and
+then tried to bolt. Wilbur watched and envied him the absolute ease with
+which he brought down the broncho to a quiet lope again.
+
+"I'm going to join the Forest Service," the boy explained, knowing that
+according to the etiquette of the West no question would be asked about
+his business, but that he would be expected to volunteer some statement,
+"and my idea in coming to the ranch was to pick up a couple of horses
+and go on to the forest with the Ranger. I understand the Supervisor,
+Mr. Merritt, is very busy with some timber sales, and I didn't know
+whether the Ranger would be able to get away."
+
+"I kind o' thought you might be headed for the Forest Service, since you
+was goin' along with Rifle-Eye," said the cowboy. "An' if you're goin'
+with him, you'll be all right."
+
+"The Service looks pretty good to me," said Wilbur.
+
+"I've no kick comin' agin the National Forests," said Bob-Cat, "we've
+always been treated white enough. Of course, there's always some
+soreheads who want to stampede the range and gets peevish when they're
+balked, but I guess the Service is a good thing all round. It don't
+appeal none to me, o' course. If I held all the cards, I'd rip down
+every piece of barbed wire west of the Mississippi, let the sheepmen go
+to the ranges beside the canals o' Mars or some other ekally distant
+region, an' git back to the good old days o' the Jones 'n' Plummer
+trail. But then, I sure enough realize that I'm not the only strikin'
+feature o' the landscape an' there's others that might have a say."
+
+"I guess the present way is the best in the long run at that, for all I
+hear," said Wilbur, "because every one now has a fair show. You can't
+have cattle and sheep overrunning everywhere without absolutely ruining
+the forests. Especially sheep. They can destroy a forest and make it as
+though it had never existed."
+
+"I'm huggin' love of sheep none," said the cowboy, "an' my mental picter
+of the lower regions is a place what smells strong of sheep. But I sure
+miss my throw on any idee as to how they could do up a forest of big
+trees."
+
+"They do, just the same."
+
+"How? Open her up, pard, an' explain. I'm listenin' mighty attentive."
+
+"This way," began the boy, remembering some of the talks he had heard at
+the Ranger School. "When a dry year comes, if the sheep are allowed into
+the forest, the grass, which is poor because of the dryness, soon gets
+eaten down. Then the sheep begin to browse on the young shoots and
+seedlings, and even will eat the leaves off the young saplings that they
+can reach, thus destroying all the baby trees and checking the growth of
+those that are a little more advanced. When this goes on for two or
+three seasons all the young growth is gone. Since there are no saplings,
+no young shoots, and no seedlings, the forest never recovers, but
+becomes more like a park with stretches of grass between clumps of
+trees. Then, when these trees die, there are no others to take their
+place and the forest is at an end."
+
+"How about cattle?"
+
+"They're not nearly as bad. Cattle won't eat leaves unless they have to.
+And they don't browse so close, nor pack down the ground as hard with
+their hoofs. If there's grass enough to go round, cattle won't injure a
+forest much, but, of course, the grazing has got to be restricted or
+else the same sort of thing will happen that goes on when sheep are let
+in."
+
+"Never knew before," said the boy's companion, "why I ought ter hate
+sheep. Jest naterally they're pizen to me, but I never rightly figured
+out why I allers threw them in the discard. Now I know. There's a heap
+of satisfaction in that. It's like findin' that a man you sure disagreed
+with in an argyment is a thunderin' sight more useful to the community
+dead than he was alive. It don't alter your feelin's none, but it helps
+out strong on the ensooin' explanations."
+
+"Are there many sheep out here?"
+
+"There's a tidy few. But it's nothin' like Montana. You ought ter get
+Rifle-Eye Bill to tell you of the old days o' the sheep an' cattle
+war. The debates were considerable fervent an' plenty frequent, an' a
+Winchester or two made it seem emphatic a whole lot."
+
+"Was Rifle-Eye mixed up in it?"
+
+"Which he's allers been a sort of Florence Nightingale of the Rockies,
+has old Rifle-Eye," was the reply. "I don't mean in looks--but if a
+feller's shot up or hurt, or anythin' of that kind, it isn't long before
+the old hunter turns up, takes him to some shack near by and persuades
+somebody to look after him till he gets around again. An' we've got a
+little lady that rides a white mare in these here Sierras who's a sure
+enough angel. I don't want to know her pedigree, but when it comes to
+angels, she's It. An' when she an' Rifle-Eye hitches up to do the
+ministerin' act, you'd better believe the job's done right. I never
+heard but of one man that ever said 'No' to Rifle-Eye, no matter what
+fool thing he asked."
+
+"How was that?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"It was the wind-up of one o' these here little differences of opinion
+on the sheep question, same as I've been tellin' you of. It happened
+somewhar up in Oregon, although I've forgotten the name o' the ranch.
+Rifle-Eye could tell you the story better'n I can, but he won't. It was
+somethin' like this:
+
+"There was a big coulee among the hills, an', one summer, when there'd
+been a prairie fire that wiped out a lot o' feed, a bunch o' cattle was
+headed into this coulee. Three cowpunchers and a cook with the chuck
+wagon made up the gang. But this yar cook was one o' them fellers what's
+not only been roped by bad luck, but hog-tied and branded good and
+plenty. He had been the boss of a ranch, a small one, but he'd fallen
+foul o' the business end of a blizzard, an' he'd lost every blamed head
+o' cattle that he had. He lost his wife, too."
+
+"How did she come in on it?"
+
+"It was this way. She heard, or thought she heard, some one callin'
+outside, a little ways from the house. She s'posed, o' course, that it
+was the men who had tackled the storm in the hope o' savin' some o' the
+cattle, an' she ran out o' the door to give 'em an answerin' hail so as
+they could git an idee as to the direction o' the house. But she hadn't
+gone but a few steps when the wind caught her--leastways, that was how
+they figured it out afterwards--and blew her along a hundred feet or so
+before she could catch breath, and then she stumbled and fell. She got
+up, sort o' dazed, most like, and tried to run back to the shack. But in
+the blindin' snow nothin' o' the house could be seen, an' though she
+tried to fight up in that direction against the wind, she must have gone
+past it a little distance to the left. They didn't find her until two
+days after when the blizzard had blown itself out, an' there she was,
+stone dead, not more than a half a mile away from the house.
+
+"The boss was near crazy when they found her, an' he never was fit for
+much afterwards. There was a child, only a little shaver then, who was
+asleep in the house at the time his mother run out to answer the shout
+she reckoned she heard. So, since the rancher wasn't anyways overstocked
+on female relations, an' he had the kid to look after, the one-time boss
+went out as a camp cook an' took the boy along. He was rustlin' the
+chuck for this bunch I'm a-tellin' you about, that goes into the coulee.
+
+"By 'n' by, a week or so afterward, a herd o' sheep comes driftin' into
+this same valley, bein' ekally short for feed, an' the herders knocks up
+a sort o' corral an' looks to settle down. The cowpunchers pays 'em an
+afternoon call, an' suggests that the air outside the coulee is a lot
+healthier for sheep--an' sheepmen--an' that onless they makes up their
+minds to depart, an' to make that departure a record-breaker for speed,
+they'll make their relatives sure a heap mournful. The sheepmen replies
+in a vein noways calculated to bring the dove o' peace hoverin' around,
+an' volunteers as a friendly suggestion that the cattlemen had best send
+to town and order four nice new tombstones before ringin' the curtain up
+on any gladiatorial pow-wow. When the cowpunchers rides back, honors is
+even, an' each side is one man short.
+
+"Now, this coulee, which is the scene of these here operations, is so
+located that there's only one way out. Most things in life there's more,
+but in this here particular coulee, the openin' plays a lone hand. As
+the cattlemen got there first, and went 'way back to the end o' the
+ravine, the sheepmen are nearer to what you might call the valley door.
+If the cowpunchers could have made a get-away, it's a cinch that they'd
+have headed for the ranch an' brought back enough men with them to make
+their persuasion plenty urgent. But the herders ain't takin' any chances
+of allowin' the other side to better their hand, an' when, one night, a
+cowpuncher tries to rush it, they pots him as pretty as you please. The
+cook, who's cuddlin' his Winchester at the time, fires at the flash and
+disposes o' the herder, sort o' evenin' matters up. This leaves only one
+cowpuncher and the cook. There's still three men at the herders' camp.
+
+"Then the cook, he indooces a bullet to become sufficient intimate with
+one o' the herder's anatomy, but gits a hole in the leg himself an' is
+laid up. The other cowpuncher runs the gauntlet an' gits out safe. He
+hikes back the next day with a bunch o' boys, an' they follows up the
+herders an' wipes out that camp for fair, an' stampedes the herd over
+the nearest canyon. Then they circles back to the coulee to pick up the
+cook.
+
+"When they gits there, they surely finds themselves up against evidences
+of a tragedy. The cook, he's lyin' on the floor of the shack, dead as a
+nail, an' near him is the kid, who's still holdin' a table-knife in his
+hand, but who's lyin' unconscious from a wound in the head. The way they
+dopes it out, there's been a free-for-all fight in the place between the
+two remainin' herders an' the wounded cook, an' it looks some as if the
+kid had tried to help his dad by jabbin' at the legs o' the herders with
+a knife and been booted in the side o' the head to keep him quiet."
+
+"How old was the youngster, then, Bob-Cat?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Seven or eight, I guess, maybe not so much," replied the other, "a
+nice, bright little kid, so I've heard. But there was somethin' broke, I
+reckon, by the blow he had, an' he never got over it. The boys took him
+back to the ranch an' doctored him the best they knew how, but they was
+buckin' fate an' had to quit, lettin' the kid git better or worse as it
+might turn out."
+
+"But where does Rifle-Eye come in?"
+
+"This way. Just before round-up, Rifle-Eye comes along, showin' he has
+the whole story salted down, though where he larned it gits me, and
+proposes that sence it was the sheepmen that injured the lad, it's up to
+them to look after him. At first the boys objects, sayin' that the kid
+was a cowpuncher's kid, but Rifle-Eye convinces 'em that the youngster's
+locoed for fair, that he's likely to stay that way for good an' all, and
+sence they agrees they can't ever make anythin' out of him, they lets
+him go.
+
+"Then Rifle-Eye, he takes this unfortunate kid to the man that owned
+the sheep. He's a big owner, this man, and runs thirty or forty herds.
+The old hunter--this was all before he was a Ranger, you know--he puts
+it right up to the sheep-owner, who's a half-Indian, by the way, an'
+tells him that he's got to look after the boy. The old skinflint says
+'No,' and this here, as I was sayin', is the only time that any one ever
+turned down old Rifle-Eye."
+
+"And what happened to the boy?" queried Wilbur.
+
+"The old hunter tries to shame this here sheep-owner into doin' the
+right thing, but he didn't have any more shame in him than a turkey
+buzzard; an' then he tries to bluff him an' says he'll make him keep the
+kid, but the old sinner jest whined around an' wouldn't give any sort o'
+satisfaction at all. So Rifle-Eye, he shakes the dust o' that house
+off'n his feet so good an' hard that he mighty nearly shakes the nails
+out of his boot-heels, an' hunts up a legal shark. Then an' there he
+adopts this half-witted youngster, an' has kep' him ever sence."
+
+"How long ago was this?"
+
+"Fifteen years an' more, I reckon. The kid's big now, an' strong as a
+bull moose, but he's a long way from bein' right in his head. He lives
+up in the woods, a piece back here, an' I reckon you'll find Rifle-Eye
+there as often as you will at his own cabin further along the range,
+although he never sleeps indoors at either place."
+
+"Never sleeps indoors?"
+
+"That's a straight string. He's got a decent enough shack where the boy
+is, but as soon as it gits dark, old Rifle-Eye he jest makes a pile o'
+cedar boughs, builds up a fire, an' goes to sleep. For fifty years he
+ain't slept under a roof summer or winter, an' when once he was in a
+town over-night, which was about the boy, as I was tellin' ye, he had to
+get up an' go on the roof to sleep. Lucky," added Bob-Cat with a grin,
+"it was a flat roof."
+
+"Fifty years is a long time," commented the boy.
+
+"Old Rifle-Eye ain't any spring chicken. He shouldered a musket in the
+Civil War, an' durin' the Indian mix-ups was generally found floatin'
+around wherever the fun was thickest. He was mighty close friends with
+the Pacific scout, old 'Death-on-th'-Trail,' who handed in his time at
+Portland not long ago."
+
+"Handed in his time?" questioned Wilbur, then, as the meaning of the
+phrase flashed upon him, "oh, yes, I see, you mean he died."
+
+"Sure, pard, died. You ought ter git Rifle-Eye Bill to spin you some
+yarns about 'Death-on-th'-Trail.' He'll deny that he's any shakes
+himself, but he'll talk about his old campmate forever."
+
+The cowboy pointed with his hand to a long, low group of buildings that
+had just come within sight.
+
+"See, Wilbur," he said, "there's the Double Bar J."
+
+
+[Illustration: HOW YOUNG FORESTS ARE DESTROYED.
+
+Showing the way in which sheep and goats, having cropped the grass
+close, will attack undergrowth.
+
+_Photographs by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE SHEEP ARE ALLOWED.
+
+Example of meadow stretches in midst of heavily forested mountain
+slopes.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PICKING A LIVELY BRONCHO
+
+
+On seeing the ranch, Bob-Cat and Wilbur had put their ponies to a burst
+of speed and in a few minutes they reached the corral. The buildings,
+while comfortable enough, were far from pretentious, and even their
+strangeness scarcely made up to the boy for the lack of the picturesque.
+Then, of course, the fact that the cattle at that time of year were
+scattered all over the range and consequently that none of them were in
+sight, rendered it still less like his ideal of a cattle ranch, where he
+had half expected to see thousands of long-horned cattle tossing their
+heads the while that cowboys galloped around them shouting and firing
+off pistols.
+
+In contrast with this, the dwelling, the bunk-house, the cooking shack,
+and the other frame sheds, all of the neutral gray that unpainted wood
+becomes when exposed to the weather, seemed very unexciting indeed. But
+when the lad turned to the corral, he felt that there was compensation
+there. Several hundred horses were in the enclosure, of many colors and
+breeds, but the greater part of them Indian ponies, or containing a
+strain of the mustang, and smaller and shaggier than the horses he had
+been accustomed to ride in his Illinois home.
+
+The boy turned to his companion, his eyes shining with excitement.
+
+"Do you suppose that I can buy any of those horses that I want to?" he
+said.
+
+"If you're totin' along a pile of dinero, you might," was the reply,
+"but there's a few cayuses in there that would surely redooce a big roll
+o' bills to pretty skinny pickin's. For example, this little bay I'm
+ridin' now ain't any special wonder, an' maybe he's only worth about
+fifty dollars, but you can't buy him for five hundred. I reckon, though,
+you c'n trot away with most of 'em in there for ninety or a hundred
+dollars apiece."
+
+"I hadn't expected to pay more than seventy or seventy-five," said
+Wilbur, his native shrewdness coming to the front, "and I think I ought
+to be able to pick up a good horse or two for that, don't you think?"
+
+"There's allers somethin' that ain't worth much to be got cheap," said
+the cowboy, "but I don't look friendly none on payin' a cheap price for
+a horse. Speakin' generally, there's somethin' that every feller likes a
+whole lot, an' out here, where domestic life ain't our chief play, it's
+mostly a horse. Leastways, when I hit the long trail, I'll be just as
+sorry to leave some ponies behind as I will humans."
+
+"A horse can be a great chum," assented Wilbur. "So can a dog."
+
+"No dogs in mine," said Bob-Cat emphatically, "they reminds me too much
+o' sheep. But when it comes to a horse, I tell ye, there's a lot more in
+the deal than buyin' an animal to carry you; there's buyin' somethin'
+that all the money in the world can't bring you sometimes--an' that's a
+friend."
+
+Wilbur waited a moment without reply, and then the cowboy, deliberately
+changing the topic to cloak any strain of sentiment which he thought he
+might have been betrayed into showing, continued:
+
+"How about saddles?"
+
+"I'd been thinking about that," replied the boy, "and I thought I'd wait
+until I got out here before deciding. You can't use an English
+saddle-tree, of course, and I hate it anyway, and one like yours is too
+big. Those lumbering Mexican saddles always look to me as if they were
+as big a load for a little pony to carry as a man."
+
+"Sure, they're heavy. But you can't do any ropin' without them. If you
+try 'n' rope on a small saddle the girth'll pretty near cut a pony in
+two. But you ain't got any ropin' to do, so I sh'd think an army
+saddle-tree would be about right. There's Rifle-Eye Bill comin' out of
+the bunk-house now. Ask him. He'll know."
+
+Wilbur looked up, and saw emerging from the door of the bunk-house a
+tall, gaunt mountaineer. He strolled over to the corral with a long,
+loose-jointed stride.
+
+"Got him, all right, Bob-Cat, did you?" he said in a measured drawl,
+then, turning to the boy, added: "Glad to see you, son."
+
+"I've been hearing all about you, sir," answered Wilbur, "and I'm
+awfully glad to meet you here." He was about to dismount, but noting
+that Bob-Cat had merely thrown a leg over the horn of his saddle, he
+stayed where he was.
+
+The old Ranger looked him over critically and closely, so that Wilbur
+felt himself flushing under the direct gaze, though he met the clear
+gray eye of his new acquaintance without flinching. Presently the
+latter turned to the range-rider.
+
+"What do you think of him?" he asked in a slow, curiously commanding
+way.
+
+Bob-Cat squirmed uneasily.
+
+"You is sure annoyin'," he said in an aggrieved manner, "askin' me to go
+on record so plumb sudden. I'm no mind-reader."
+
+There was a pause, but the Ranger quietly waited.
+
+"It's embarrassin'," said Bob-Cat, "to try an' trot out a verdic' on
+snap-jedgment. I don't know."
+
+Rifle-Eye, quite unperturbed, looked at him steadily and inquiringly.
+
+"You know what you think," he said.
+
+"He's sure green," replied the cowboy, shrugging his shoulders in
+protest, "an' he ain't much more humble-minded than a hen that's jest
+laid an egg of unusooal size, but I reckon he's got the makin's."
+
+"It's a good thing to be green," said the old Ranger thoughtfully,
+"nothin' grows much after it's dry, Bob-Cat. The heart's got to be green
+anyway. Ye git hard to bend an' easy to break when ye're gettin' old."
+
+"Then it's a cinch you'll never get old," promptly responded the other.
+
+But the mountaineer continued talking, half to himself:
+
+"An' he's too sure of himself! Wa'al, he's young yet. I've seen a pile
+o' sickness in my day, Bob-Cat, but that's about the easiest one to cure
+there is."
+
+"What is?"
+
+"Bein' young. Well, son, ye'd better turn the pony in."
+
+The boy dismounted, and, half in pique at the dubious character given
+him by Bob-Cat and half in thanks for the meeting at the station and the
+ride, he turned to the cowboy, and said:
+
+"I'm glad I've 'got the makings' anyway, and I'm much obliged, Bob-Cat,
+for all the yarns you told me on the trail. But, next time I come to the
+ranch I'll try not to be as green, and I know I'll not be as young."
+
+The cowboy laughed.
+
+"It's no use tryin' to dodge Rifle-Eye," he said. "You stand about as
+good a chance as if you was tryin' to sidestep a blizzard or parryin'
+the charge from a Gatlin' gun. If he asks a question you can gamble
+every chip in your pile that you're elected, and you've got to ante up
+with the answer whether it suits your hand or no."
+
+Wilbur, following the suggestion of the Ranger, unsaddled his pony,
+turned him into the corral, and hung his saddle on the fence. Then
+together they went up to the house, where Wilbur met the boss, and after
+a few moments' chat they returned to the corral.
+
+As the lad had come to the ranch especially for the purpose of buying a
+couple of ponies, he was anxious to transact the business as quickly as
+possible, and together with Bob-Cat and Rifle-Eye he scanned the horses
+in the enclosure, endeavoring to display, as he did so, what little
+knowledge of horseflesh he possessed. After the boy had commented on
+several, Rifle-Eye pointed out first one and then a second which he had
+previously decided on as being the best animals for the boy. But
+Wilbur's eye was attracted to a fine sorrel, and, turning to Rifle-Eye,
+he said decidedly:
+
+"I want that one!"
+
+The old Ranger, remarking quietly that it was a fine horse, but not
+suitable to the purpose for which Wilbur wanted the animal, passed on to
+the discussion of several other ponies near by, teaching the boy to
+discern the fine points of a horse, not for beauty, but for service.
+
+But as soon as he had finished speaking, after a purely perfunctory
+assent, Wilbur burst out again:
+
+"But, Rifle-Eye, I really want that sorrel most."
+
+"You really think you want him?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"You wouldn't if you knew a little more about horses, son," said the
+Ranger. "It's all right to be sure what you want, but what you want is
+to be sure that what you want is right."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure I'm right," answered the boy confidently.
+
+"You can't be too careful choosin' a horse," commented Rifle-Eye.
+"Choosin' a horse is a good deal like pickin' out a sugar pine for
+shakes. You know what shakes are?"
+
+"No, Rifle-Eye," answered the boy.
+
+"They're long, smooth, split sheets of wood that the old-timers used for
+shingles. There's lots of sugar pine that'll make the finest kind o'
+lumber, an' all of it's good for fuel, but there ain't one tree in a
+hundred that'll split naturally an' easily into shakes. An' there ain't
+more'n one man in a hundred as can tell when a tree will do. But when
+you do get one just right, it's worth any ten other trees. An' the pine
+that's good ain't because it's a pretty tree to look at, or an easy one
+to cut down, or because of any other reason than that the grain's right.
+Same way with a horse. It ain't for his looks, nor for his speed, nor
+because he's easy to ride, nor for his strength you want him, but
+because his grain's right."
+
+"Well, I'm sure that sorrel looks just right."
+
+"Do looks always tell?"
+
+"Oh, I can always tell a horse by his looks," replied Wilbur boastfully.
+"Anyhow, I want him."
+
+"Persistent?" chuckled Bob-Cat, who was standing by enjoying every word,
+"why, cockle-burs ain't nothin' to him."
+
+"But, supposin'," the old scout began gently, "I told you that the
+sorrel was the worst you could have, not the best?"
+
+"But he ain't," broke in Bob-Cat, who could not bear to hear a friend's
+pony harshly criticised, "that's one of Bluey's string, an' he allers
+had good horses."
+
+"There--you hear," said Wilbur triumphantly.
+
+"I said--for the boy, Bob-Cat," answered the old Ranger firmly.
+
+"I--I suppose you would have good reasons," said Wilbur, answering the
+old scout's question, "but I want him just the same, and I don't see why
+I can't buy him, if he's for sale. It's my money!"
+
+"Sure, it's your money. An' the sorrel's a good horse," said the cowboy,
+to whom the persistence of Wilbur was giving great delight.
+
+The Ranger slowly turned his head in silent rebuke, but although Bob-Cat
+was conscious of it, he was enjoying the fun too much to stop.
+
+"You know he couldn't ride the sorrel, Bob-Cat," said Rifle-Eye
+reproachfully.
+
+"But I can ride him, I know," said Wilbur. "I'm a good rider, really I
+am. And he looks gentle, besides. He is gentle, isn't he, Bob-Cat?"
+
+"He's playful enough," was the reply, "some like a kitten, an' he surely
+is plenty restless in his habits. But where he shines is nerves. Why,
+pard, he c'd make a parcel of females besieged by a mouse look as if
+they was posin' for a picter, they'd be so still by comparison. But he's
+gentle, all right."
+
+"I wouldn't want to try it if he was vicious, Rifle-Eye," said the boy
+appealingly, "but I really can ride, and he looks like a good horse."
+
+"Are you buyin' this horse for your own pleasure or the work o' the
+Service? You're goin' to do your ridin' on my range, an' I reckon you'll
+admit I have some say."
+
+"But I can break him to the work of the Service. Do let me try him!"
+Wilbur's persistence appeared in every look and word. "I don't see why I
+can't try, anyway, and then if I can't do it, there's no harm done."
+
+"Can you throw a rope?" queried the Ranger.
+
+"No," returned the boy promptly. "I never learned. But I can try."
+
+"If you can't rope, how do you expect to saddle him? These ain't farm
+horses that you c'n harness or saddle while they eat oats out of your
+hand." He turned to the cowboy. "Can the sorrel be saddled without
+ropin'?"
+
+"Bluey does," was the reply, "but I don't know that he'll let me."
+
+"Won't you saddle him for me, Bob-Cat? I know I can ride him if I have a
+fair show."
+
+The range-rider turned to the old Ranger.
+
+"How about it?" he said. "The kid'll hunt leather for a while and then
+eat grass. But there's nothin' mean in the sorrel, an' he won't get
+hurt."
+
+"I'll ride him," said Wilbur stoutly.
+
+"You might, at that," rejoined Bob-Cat. "He's a game little sport,
+Rifle-Eye," he added, turning to the tall figure beside him, "why not
+let him play his hand out? You can't be dead sure how the spots will
+fall. Sure, I've twice seen an Eastern maverick driftin' into a faro
+game, an' by fools' luck cleanin' up the bank."
+
+"If a man's a fool who depends on luck, what kind of a fool is the man
+who depends on fools' luck? You ain't playin' a square deal, Bob-Cat, in
+supportin' the lad to go on askin' to do what ain't good for him. But
+seein' you force my hand, why, you'd better go ahead now."
+
+"I didn't force your hand none," replied the other, "I was merely
+throwin' out a suggestion."
+
+"If I refuse the boy somethin' another man says is all right, doesn't
+that make it look as ef it was meanness in me? An' he goin' to work with
+me, too! What's the use o' sayin' that you ain't forcin' my hand? Givin'
+advice, Bob-Cat, ain't any go-as-you-please proposition; it's got to be
+thought out. Feelin's don't allers point the right trail to jedgment,
+an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right
+in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a
+windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees
+settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a forest an'
+ruins the inside."
+
+"How is that?" asked Wilbur, anxious to divert the stream of Rifle-Eye's
+criticism from the cowboy, who had got himself into trouble defending
+him. "I didn't know there was any difference between a tree on the
+outside of a forest and one on the inside."
+
+"Wa'al, then, I guess you're due to learn right now. If there's a tree
+of any size, standin' out by itself on a mountain side, with plenty of
+leaves, an' a big wind comes along, you c'n see easy enough that she
+presents a heap of surface to the wind. An' when a mountain gale gets up
+and blows fer fair, there's a pressure of air on that tree amountin' to
+several tons."
+
+"Tons?" queried Bob-Cat incredulously.
+
+"Tons," answered the old Banger. "A tree needs to have some strength in
+order to hold up its end. There's three ways o' doin' it. One is by
+havin' a lot more give in the fibers, more elastic like, so that the
+tree'll bend in the wind an' not get snapped off; another is by puttin'
+out a lot o' roots an' shovin' 'em in deep an' at the same time havin' a
+trunk that's plenty stout; an' the third is the thickenin' o' the trunk,
+right near the ground, where the greatest part o' the strain comes. An'
+all the various kinds o' trees works this out in different ways. But
+nothin's ever wasted, an'--"
+
+"Oh, I see now," broke in Wilbur. "You're going to say that the trees
+which don't grow on the outside of a forest don't have to waste vitality
+into these forms of resistance."
+
+"That's right. A tree that grows in a ravine, where there is little
+chance of a high wind, an' where light is scarce an' hard to get, such a
+tree will have a shallow root system an' a spindlin' trunk, all the
+growth havin' gone to height, an' a tree in the center of a forest is
+often the same way. The wind can't git through the forest, an' so the
+trees don't need ter prop themselves against it."
+
+"Talk about yer eddicated trees!" ejaculated the cowboy, "which colleges
+is a fool to them."
+
+"It's true enough, Bob-Cat, just the same. But supposin' a belt on the
+outside o' the forest is cut down, then the inner trees, thus exposed,
+haven't any proper weapons to fight the wind, an' they go down."
+
+"Doesn't it take a very high wind to blow down some of these big trees?"
+asked Wilbur.
+
+"Some kinds it does," said the Ranger, "but there's others that go down
+pretty easy, lodge-pole pine, fer instance. But a tree doesn't have to
+be blown down to be ruined. Even if a branch is blown off--an' you know
+how often that happens--insects and fungi get into the wound of the tree
+and decay follows."
+
+"But you can't persuade the wind none," objected Bob-Cat. "If she's
+goin' to blow, she's goin' to blow, an' that's all there is to it."
+
+"No, it ain't any use arguin' with a fifty-mile breeze, that's sure. But
+you can keep the inside trees from bein' blown down by leavin' uncut the
+deep-rooted trees on the outside. If you wanted a good big bit of
+timber, an' could cut it from a tree on the outside o' the forest, you'd
+take it first because it was handiest, wouldn't you?"
+
+"I sure would."
+
+"Yet, you see, it would ha' been the worst thing you could do. An' as I
+started out to say, that's where you get in wrong doin' things without
+thinkin'. Just like this ridin' idee to-day. By urgin' on the lad's
+nateral desire you make it hard fer him an' fer me."
+
+"All right, Rifle-Eye," said Bob-Cat good-humoredly, "you've got me. I
+reckon I passes up this hand entire." He nodded and began to stroll
+away.
+
+But Wilbur called him back.
+
+"Oh, Bob-Cat," he cried, "aren't you going to saddle him for me now?"
+
+The cowboy turned and grinned.
+
+"Which you'd make tar an' feathers look sick for stickin' to a thing."
+Then, reading a grudging assent from Rifle-Eye, he continued: "Yep, I'll
+go an' saddle," and sauntered into the corral.
+
+In a few minutes he came back, leading the sorrel. He was saddled and
+Bob-Cat had shortened up the stirrups. Wilbur jumped forward eagerly,
+put his foot in the stirrup, and was up like a flash. The sorrel never
+moved. The boy shook the reins a little and clucked his tongue against
+his teeth without any apparent result. Then Wilbur dug his heels into
+the pony's ribs.
+
+Things began to happen. The sorrel went straight up in the air with all
+four feet, coming down with the legs stiff, giving Wilbur a jar which
+set every nerve twitching as though he had got an electric shock. But
+he kept his seat. Then the sorrel began pacing forward softly with an
+occasional sudden buck, each of which nearly threw him off and at most
+of which he had to "hunt leather," or in other words, catch hold of the
+saddle with his hands. Still he kept his seat.
+
+Finding that these simpler methods did not avail, the sorrel began a
+little more aggressive bucking, fore and aft, "sun-fishing" and
+"weaving," and once or twice rearing up so straight that Wilbur was
+afraid the sorrel would fall over backwards on him, and he had heard of
+riders being killed that way. But he stole a glance at Rifle-Eye, and,
+seeing that the old Ranger was looking on quite unperturbed, he realized
+that there was no great danger. And still he kept his seat.
+
+But as the sorrel warmed up to his work the boy began to realize that he
+had not the faintest chance of being able to wear the pony down. It was
+now only a question of how long he could stick on. He knew he would be
+done if the sorrel started to roll, but as yet the beast had shown no
+inclination that way. But as the bucks grew quicker and more jerky,
+Wilbur began to wonder within himself whether he would prefer to pitch
+over the pony's head or slide off over his tail. Suddenly, with a bound,
+the pony went up in the air and gave a double wriggle as he came down
+and Wilbur found himself on the ground before he knew what had happened.
+The sorrel, who, as Bob-Cat had said, was a gentle beast, stood quietly
+by, and the boy always afterwards declared that he could hear the horse
+chuckle.
+
+The boy got up abashed and red in the face, because several other
+ranchmen had come up and were enjoying his confusion, but he tried to
+put a good face on it, and said:
+
+"That's a bucker for fair."
+
+"No," responded Bob-Cat, "that isn't bucking," and he swung himself into
+the saddle.
+
+The sorrel commenced plunging and rearing again, this time with greater
+vigor. But Bob-Cat, taking a little bag of tobacco and some cigarette
+papers out of his pocket, quietly poured out some of the tobacco on the
+paper, rolled it carefully, and then lighted it, keeping his seat on the
+bucking broncho quite easily the while. This done, he dismounted,
+turning to the boy as he did so.
+
+"She's easy enough. There's lots o' the boys, like Bluey, fer example,
+who really can ride," he continued, "that 'd just split with laughin'
+at the idee o' me showin' off in the saddle. I c'n rope with the best o'
+them, but I'm no buster. And some o' these here critters you've got to
+ride. See that big roan in there?"
+
+Wilbur followed the direction of his finger and nodded.
+
+"They call her 'Squealin' Bess,' an' you couldn't pay me to get on her
+back. Bluey c'n ride her; he's done it twice; but you c'n bet your last
+blue chip that he doesn't do it fer fun."
+
+Wilbur turned to the old Ranger who had been standing silently by
+through the performance.
+
+"I'm much obliged, Rifle-Eye," he said, "but I'd like to buy that sorrel
+just the same and learn to ride him."
+
+For the first time the old Ranger smiled.
+
+"You're somethin' like a crab, Wilbur," he said, "that grabs a stick
+viciously with his claw an' won't let go even when he's hauled up out o'
+the water. You c'n buy the sorrel if you want to, but he won't be any
+use to you up in the forest. Broncho-bustin' is an amusement you c'n
+keep for your leisure hours. But I'm thinkin', son, from what I know of
+the work you'll have to do, that you'll mostly be tired enough after a
+day's work to want to rest a while. But if you're sot, I s'pose you're
+sot. An' I'm old enough to know that it's no use hammerin' a mule when
+he's got his forelegs spread. Get whatever horses you like, I've got a
+saddle for you up at the bunk-house, an' you c'n meet me beyond the
+corral sunup to-morrow mornin'."
+
+He nodded to the boys and turned on his heel, walking off in the
+direction of the river. Seeing that the fun was over the boys scattered,
+and Wilbur, finding that his friend Bob-Cat was going to stay at the
+ranch over-night, attached himself to him. But as soon as supper was
+over, the lad, finding himself stiffer than he had expected from his
+battle with the sorrel, partly because he had not been riding constantly
+for a couple of years, was glad to go to his bunk, listening to the
+breezy Western talk of the men and the yarns of cattle and of horses
+that they had to tell. He hardly knew that he had fallen asleep when
+Bob-Cat shook him, saying:
+
+"Better tumble up, bub. Rifle-Eye is sure an early bird. He's some
+chanticleer, believe me. He's plumb convinced that if he ain't awake and
+up to greet the sun, it won't rise."
+
+Wilbur laughed and "tumbled up" accordingly.
+
+At breakfast, over the plentiful food served on tin plates and in tin
+mugs, Rifle-Eye was entirely silent, uttering never a word and paying no
+attention to any allusion about horses. Right after the meal Wilbur went
+down to the corral, saddled one of his two new horses, put a leading
+bridle on the other, and, after bidding Bob-Cat and the boys "Good-by,"
+started for the point where he was to meet the Ranger.
+
+As he rode up, the old frontiersman scanned carefully the two horses the
+boy had with him and his face cleared.
+
+"What horses are those?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, just a couple I got for the forest work," answered Wilbur with
+overdone carelessness.
+
+They rode on in silence a few rods, then the old Ranger spoke again.
+
+"Don't ever be afraid o' lettin' on you've made a mistake, son," he
+said; "the more mistakes you make the more you'll know. There's only one
+thing to remember, don't make the same mistake twice."
+
+"I'll try not," said the boy.
+
+The Ranger reined up beside the lad, and, reaching out his long, gaunt
+hand, patted the neck of the pony on which Wilbur was riding.
+
+"They're half-sisters, those two," he said. "I raised 'em from colts
+myself. I rode the mother over these very trails, many and many's the
+time. This one is called Kit, after her."
+
+Wilbur flushed at the remembrance of the manner in which before he had
+slighted the old scout's choice.
+
+"Oh, Rifle-Eye," he said penitently, "if I'd only known!"
+
+"You'll prize them more now," the Ranger said.
+
+
+[Illustration: COWBOYS AT THE ROUND-UP.
+
+The riders of the Double Bar J Ranch bunching up their cattle in the
+National Forest.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A TUSSLE WITH A WILD-CAT
+
+
+"Bob-Cat was telling me," said Wilbur, as with the Ranger he rode
+through the arid and silvered grayness of the Mohave desert and reached
+the foothill country, "that before you entered the Service you were
+pretty well known as a hunter."
+
+"Wa'al, son," the mountaineer replied, "I reckon I've done some kind o'
+huntin' for fifty years on end. But there's not much huntin' in this
+part o' the country."
+
+"No," said Wilbur, looking around him, "I guess there isn't."
+
+The road ran along a little gully with a small stream shaded by scrub
+oak, but arising from this and similar gullies, in great rounded bosses,
+heaved the barren slopes, the grass already turning yellow and too
+sparse to cloak the red earth below.
+
+"Yet," said Rifle-Eye, pointing with his finger as he spoke, "there's a
+desert fox."
+
+Wilbur strained his eyes to see, but the unfamiliar growth of cacti,
+sage-brush, palo verde, and the dusty-miller plants made quick vision
+difficult. In a moment, however, he caught sight of the little
+reddish-gray animal running swiftly and almost indistinguishable from
+its surroundings.
+
+"But up there?" queried the boy, pointing in front of them. The road
+wound onward toward the middle Sierras, thickly wooded with oak and
+digger pine, and, of course, the chapparal, and towering to the clouds
+rose the mighty serrated peaks of the range, where magnificent forests
+of pine, fir, and cedar swept upwards to the limits of eternal snow. "Up
+there the hunting must be wonderful."
+
+"Among the mount'ns!" said the old hunter slowly. "Wa'al, up there, you
+see, is home."
+
+"You certainly can't complain about the looks of your home, then," said
+the boy, "for that's just about the finest I've ever seen."
+
+"'There's no place like home,'" quoted Rifle-Eye quietly, "but I ain't
+ever feelin' that my home's so humble. It ain't a question of its bein'
+good enough fer me, it's a question o' whether I'm good enough fer it."
+
+"It makes quite a house," said Wilbur, following the old mountaineer's
+line of thought.
+
+"I've never lived in any smaller house than that," responded Rifle-Eye,
+"an' I reckon now I never will. There's some I know that boasts of
+ownin' a few feet o' space shut in by a brick wall. Not for me. My house
+is as far as my eyes c'n see, an' from the ground to the sky."
+
+Wilbur was silent for a moment, feeling the thrill of Nature in the old
+man's speech.
+
+"It's to be my home, too," he said gently.
+
+Rifle-Eye smiled at the lad.
+
+"I don't know that I'm quite the oldest inhabitant," he said, "but I
+sure am the oldest Ranger in the Service, an' all I c'n say is, 'Make
+yerself to home.'"
+
+"All right," said Wilbur promptly, "I'll take that as an official
+welcome from the Sierras, and I will. But," he added, "you were going to
+tell me about your hunting. I should think it would be great sport."
+
+"Son," said Rifle-Eye somewhat sharply, "I never killed a harmless
+critter 'for sport,' as you call it, in my life."
+
+"But I thought," gasped Wilbur in astonishment, "that you were hunting
+nearly all the time, before you started in as Ranger."
+
+"So I was," was the quiet reply.
+
+"But--but I don't quite see--" Wilbur stopped lamely.
+
+"I said before," resumed the old hunter, "that I never killed a harmless
+critter onless I had to. Neither have I. Varmints, o' course, is a
+different matter. I've shot plenty o' them, an' once in a while I've had
+ter kill fer food. But just shootin' for the sake o' shootin' is the
+trick of a coward or a fool or a tenderfoot or a mixture of all three.
+It's plumb unnecessary, an' it's dead wrong."
+
+"You mean shooting deer and so forth?"
+
+"I mean just that, son, if the shootin's only fer antlers an' what these
+here greenhorns calls 'trophies.' If venison is needed, why, I ain't got
+nothin' to say. A man's life is worth more than a deer's when he needs
+food, but a man's conceit ain't worth more than a deer's life."
+
+"How about bear, then, and trapping for skins?" asked the boy.
+
+"I said 'harmless critters.' Now, a bear ain't harmless, leastways, not
+as you'd notice it. Bear will take young stock, an' they're particularly
+partial to young pig, an' down among these here foothills we've been
+passin' through there's a lot o' shiftless hog-rustlers as depends on
+pork fer a livin'. As for bearskins, why, o' course you use the pelts.
+What's the idee o' leavin' them around? It ain't any kind o' good tryin'
+to spare an animal's feelin's when he's plenty good an' dead. But I've
+made this here section of the Sierras pretty hot for wolves."
+
+"I heard down at the ranch," the boy remarked, "that you had bagged
+forty-seven wolves last season."
+
+"I did have a good year," assented the Ranger, "an', of course, I can't
+give much time to it. But I reckon I've disposed of more'n a thousand
+wolves in my day, one way and another. An' as I look at it, that's
+makin' pretty good use of time."
+
+"Are wolves worse than bear?" queried Wilbur surprisedly.
+
+"They do a lot more harm in the long run. Cattlemen reckon that a wolf
+will get away with about four head a year. Myself, I think that's
+pressin' the average some; I'd put it at somewhere between two an'
+three. But it's generally figured at four."
+
+"I didn't know that wolves, lone wolves, would attack cattle."
+
+"It's calves an' yearlin's mostly that they go for. It ain't often that
+you see a wolf tacklin' anythin' bigger'n a two-year-old. But if you
+figure that a wolf gets rid o' four head a year, an' inflicts himself on
+a sufferin' community for a space of about ten years, that's somewhere
+in the neighborhood o' forty head. A thousand wolves means about forty
+thousand head of cattle, or pretty nigh a million dollars' worth of
+stock."
+
+"The beef you've saved by killing wolves," commented Wilbur, "would feed
+quite a town."
+
+"Forty thousand is a tolerable sized bunch. An' that's without figurin'
+on the wolf cubs there would have been durin' all those years from the
+older ones whose matrimonial expectations I disappointed plenty abrupt.
+An' it makes a pile o' difference to cattlemen to know they c'n send a
+herd grazin' on the national forest, an' be fairly sure they won't lose
+much by varmints."
+
+"It surely must," said the boy. "But I hadn't realized that wolves were
+such a danger."
+
+"I wouldn't go to say that they was dangerous. An old gray wolf, if you
+corner him, is surly an' savage, an' will fight anythin' at any odds.
+Out on the Barren Grounds they're bad, but around the Sierras I ain't
+heard o' them attackin' humans but twice, an' they was children, lost in
+the woods. I figure the kids had wandered around till they petered out,
+an' then, when they were exhausted, the wolves got 'em. But I've never
+heard of a wolf attackin' a man anywhere in the Rockies."
+
+"But I thought wolves ran in packs often."
+
+"Not in the United States, son, so far as I've heard of. I knew a
+Russian trapper, though, who meandered down this way from Alaska in the
+early days. He used to spin a lot o' yarns about the Siberian wolves
+runnin' in packs an' breakfastin' freely off travelers. But he seemed to
+think that it was the horses the wolves were after chiefly, although
+they weren't passin' up any toothsome peasant that happened along."
+
+"And do wolves attack horses here, too?"
+
+"Not on the trail, that fashion. But they're some partial to colts."
+
+"How about coyotes?"
+
+"They're mean critters an' they give a pesky lot o' trouble, although
+they bother sheep more'n cattle. But a few husky dogs will keep coyotes
+at a distance, though they'll watch a chance an' sneak off with a
+young lamb or any sheep what is hurt an' has fallen behind the herd. But
+they don't worry us here such a great deal, they keep mostly to the
+plains an' the prairie country."
+
+Saying this, the Ranger pulled up at the door of a shack lying a short
+distance from the road and gave a hail. Immediately there stepped from
+the door one of the largest women Wilbur had ever seen. Though her hair
+was gray, and she was angular and harsh of feature, yet, standing well
+over six feet and quite erect, she seemed to fit in well under the
+shadow of the Sierras.
+
+"I reckon you've some bacon, Susan?" was the Ranger's greeting as he
+swung himself off his horse. Wilbur followed suit.
+
+"There's somethin' awful would have to happen to a pile o' hogs," was
+the reply, "when you came by here an' couldn't get a bite."
+
+By this time a swarm of children had come out, and Wilbur, seeing that
+the Ranger had simply resigned his horse into the hands of one of the
+larger boys, did likewise and followed his guide into the house.
+
+"I wasn't sure if I'd find you here, Susan," said the old scout when
+they were seated at a simple meal. "I thought you were goin' to move
+into town."
+
+"I did," she replied. "I stayed thar jest two weeks. An' they was two
+weeks o' misery. These yar towns is too crowded for me. Now, hogs, I've
+been used to 'em all my life, an' I don't mind how many's around. But it
+only takes a few folks to make me feel as if I was real crowded."
+
+"Do you prefer hogs to people?" questioned Wilbur, smiling.
+
+"Not one by one, bub, o' course," came the slow reply, "but when it
+comes to a crowd o' both, I'm kind o' lost with folks. Everybody's busy
+an' they don't care nothin' about you, an' it makes you-all feel no
+'count. An' the noise is bewilderin'. Have you ever been in a city?"
+
+Wilbur admitted that he had.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "ye'll know what I mean. But out here, there's
+more room, like, an' I know I'm bigger'n my hogs." Following which,
+Susan launched into a long description of her favorite porkers, which
+continued almost without cessation until it was time for the two to be
+on the trail again.
+
+"That's a queer woman," said Wilbur when they were in the saddle again
+and out of hearing of the shack.
+
+"She's a good one," answered the Ranger. "Her son, by the way, is a
+member o' the legislature, an' a good lawyer, an' she's made him what he
+is. But she ain't the city kind."
+
+"Not with all those children," said Wilbur. "She'd have to hire a block
+to keep them all."
+
+"Those ain't her own children," replied the Ranger, "not a bit of it. If
+a youngster gits orphaned or laid up she just says 'Pork's plenty, send
+'em to me.' An' I generally do. Other folks do, too, an' quite a few o'
+them hev been brought her by the 'little white lady' you've been hearing
+about. She's fonder o' children than any woman I ever saw, is Susan. But
+she won't talk kids, she'll only talk hogs."
+
+"That's pretty fine work, I think," said the boy. "But I should imagine
+the youngsters wouldn't have much of a chance. It isn't any better than
+a backwoods life, away out there."
+
+The old Ranger, usually so slow and deliberate in his movements, turned
+on him like a flash.
+
+"The meanest thing in this world," he said, "is not bein' able to see or
+willin' to see what some one else has done for you. There ain't a home
+in all these here United States that don't owe its happiness to the
+backwoodsman. You can't make a country civilized by sittin' in an office
+an' writin' the word 'civilized' on the map. Some one has got to get out
+an' do it, an' keep on doin' it till it's done. It was the man who had
+nothin' in the world but a wife, a rifle, an' an ax who made America."
+
+"I had forgotten for the moment," said the boy, a little taken off his
+feet by the sudden energy and the flashing speech of the usually
+impassive mountaineer.
+
+"So does mighty near every one else 'forget for the moment.' But if the
+backwoodsman forgot for the moment he was likely to be missin' his
+scalp-lock, or if he tried to take a holiday it meant his family would
+go hungry. He never forgot his children or his children's children, but
+they're none too fond o' rememberin' him.
+
+"Everythin' you have now, he first showed you how. If he wanted a house,
+he had to build it; if he wanted bread, he had to raise the grain,
+grind, an' bake it; if he wanted clothin', he had to get skins, cure,
+an' sew 'em. But he never had to hunt for honor an' for courage; he
+brought those with him; an' he didn't have to get any book-larnin' to
+teach him how to make his cabin a home, an' his wife an' his children
+were allers joys to him, not cares. They were men! An' what do you
+reckon made 'em men?"
+
+"The hardships of the life, I suppose," hazarded Wilbur.
+
+"Not a bit of it; it was the forest. The forest was their nurse in
+infancy, their playmate when they were barefooted kids runnin' around
+under the trees, their work by day, an' their home when it was dark.
+They lived right down with Nature, an' they larned that if she was
+rugged, she was kind. They became rugged an' kind, too. An' that's what
+the right sort of American is to this day."
+
+"A lot of our best statesmen in early days were from the newly cleared
+settlements; that's a fact," said Wilbur thoughtfully, "right up to the
+Civil War."
+
+"An' through it!" added the Ranger. "How about Abe Lincoln?"
+
+Wilbur thought to himself that perhaps "backwoodsman" was not quite a
+fair idea of the great President's Illinois upbringing, but he thought
+it wiser not to argue the point to no profit.
+
+"But it's all different now," continued Rifle-Eye a trifle sadly,
+"things have changed an' the city's beginnin' to have a bigger hold than
+the forest. An' the forest still needs, an' I reckon it allers will
+need, the old kind o' men. Once we had to fight tooth an' nail agin the
+forest jest to get enough land to live on, an' now we've got to fight
+jest as hard for the forest so as there'll be enough of it for what we
+need. In this here country you can't ever get away from the
+woods-dweller, whether he's backwoodsman or Forester, or whatever you
+call him--the man who can depend on himself an' live his life wherever
+there's sky overhead an' ground underfoot an' trees between.
+
+"They're the discoverers of America, too. Oh, yes, they are," he
+continued, noting Wilbur's look of contradiction. "It wasn't Columbus or
+Amerigo or any o' the floatin' adventurers who first saw a blue splotch
+o' land on the horizon that discovered America. It was the men who
+conquered the forest, who found all, did all, an' became all that the
+life demanded, that really brought into bein' America an' the
+Americans."
+
+The Ranger stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and, touching his horse
+lightly with the spur, went on ahead up the trail. Evidently he was
+thinking of the old times and the boy had wisdom enough not to disturb
+him. As the afternoon drew on the foothills were left behind and the
+open road became more and more enclosed, until at last it was simply a
+trail through the forest. The shadows were lengthening and it was
+drawing on toward evening, when the Ranger halted beside a little
+ravine, densely wooded with yellow pine, incense cedar, and white fir.
+Wilbur was tired and his horses, fresh to the trail, were showing signs
+of fatigue, so he was glad to stop.
+
+"I don't know how you feel about it," said the Ranger, "but I reckon
+I'll camp here. There's a good spring a couple of hundred feet down
+stream. But you ain't used to this sort o' thing, an' maybe you'd better
+keep on the trail for another half-mile till you come to a little
+settlement. Somebody can put you up, I reckon."
+
+"No need to," said the boy, "I'll camp here with you."
+
+"Maybe you ain't used to sleepin' on the ground."
+
+"I guess I can stand it, if you can," replied Wilbur promptly.
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon I can," said the Ranger, "seein' that I always have an'
+always do."
+
+Wilbur had never camped in the open before without a tent or shelter of
+some kind, but he would not for the world have had his Ranger think that
+he was in the least disconcerted. Neither, to do him justice, was he,
+but rather anticipating the night under the open sky with a good deal of
+pleasure.
+
+After the horses were unsaddled and hobbled, Rifle-Eye told Wilbur to
+get the beds ready. The boy, greatly pleased with himself that he knew
+how to do this without being told, picked up his ax and started for the
+nearest balsam. But he found himself in somewhat of a difficulty. The
+white fir grew to a much larger tree than the Balm-of-Gilead he had
+known in the East, and the lower branches were tough. So he chopped down
+a young tree near, scarcely more than a sapling.
+
+A moment later he heard the Ranger call to him.
+
+"How many trees of that size do you reckon you'll want?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, they're only just saplings," the boy replied, "five or six ought to
+do."
+
+"They'll make five or six fine trees some day, won't they?" queried the
+old woodsman.
+
+"Yes, Rifle-Eye, they will," answered the boy, flushing at his lack of
+thoughtfulness. "I'd better take only one, and that a little bigger,
+hadn't I?"
+
+"An' one that's crooked. Always take a tree that isn't goin' to make
+good timber when you're not cuttin' for timber."
+
+Wilbur accordingly felled a small white fir near by, having had his
+first practical lesson of forest economy on his own forest, stripped the
+tree of its fans or flattest branches and laid them on the ground. A
+thickness of about six inches, he found, was enough to make the beds
+wonderfully springy and comfortable.
+
+In the meantime he found that Rifle-Eye was getting a fireplace ready,
+using for the purpose some flat stones which lay conveniently near by.
+Wilbur, stepping over a tiny rivulet which ran into the creek, noted a
+couple of stones apparently just suited for the making of a rough
+fireplace and brought them along. The Ranger looked at them.
+
+"What kind o' stone do you call that?" he asked.
+
+"Granite," said Wilbur immediately.
+
+"An' you took them out o' the water?"
+
+"Yes," answered the boy.
+
+"An' what happens when you build a fire between granite stones?"
+
+"I don't know, Rifle-Eye. What does?"
+
+"They explode sometimes, leastways, when they're wet inside. Don't
+forget that," he added as he put the stones aside. "Now," he continued,
+"go down to the spring an' fill this pot with water, an' I'll have a
+fire goin' an' some grub sizzlin' by the time you get back. The spring
+is about two hundred feet downstream and about twenty feet above the
+water. You can't miss it."
+
+Wilbur took the aluminum pot and started for the spring. He had not gone
+half the distance when he noted a stout crotched stick such as he had
+been used to getting when he camped out in the middle West for the
+purpose of hanging the cooking utensils on over the fire. So he picked
+it up and carried it along with him. Presently the gurgling of water
+told him that he was nearing the spring, and a moment later he saw the
+clearing through the trees. But, suddenly, a low snarling met his ears,
+and he halted dead at the edge of the clearing.
+
+There, before him, on the ground immediately beside the spring, crouched
+a large wild-cat, the hairy tips of her ears twitching nervously. Under
+her claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat
+had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first
+Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with
+her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his
+approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely
+what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been
+caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above the
+ground, and for the moment the cat could not budge it.
+
+Wilbur was utterly at a loss to know what to do. He had been told that
+wild-cats would never attack any one unless they had been provoked to
+fight, and he found himself very unwilling to provoke this particular
+specimen. The cat stood still, her eyes narrowed to mere slits, the ears
+slightly moving, and the tip of the tail flicking from side to side in
+quick, angry jerks. There was menace in every line of the wild-cat's
+pose.
+
+The boy had his revolver with him, but while he had occasionally fired a
+six-shooter, he was by no means a crack shot, and he realized that if he
+fired at and only wounded the creature he would unquestionably be
+attacked. And there was a lithe suppleness in the manner that the
+movement of the muscles rippled over the skin that was alarmingly
+suggestive of ferocity. Wilbur did not like the looks of it at all. On
+the other hand, he had not the slightest intention of going back to the
+camp without water. He had come for water, and he would carry water
+back, he thought to himself, if a regiment of bob-cats was in the way.
+
+The old fable that a wild beast cannot stand the gaze of the human eye
+recurred to Wilbur's remembrance, and he stood at the edge of the
+clearing regarding the cat fixedly. But the snarls only grew the louder.
+Wilbur was frightened, and he knew it, and what was more, he felt the
+cat knew it with that intuition the wild animals have for recognizing
+danger or the absence of danger. She made another effort to drag away
+the rabbit, but failing in that, with an angry yowl, with quick jerks
+and rending of her powerful jaws began to try to force the rabbit free
+from the entangling root, which done, she could carry it into the forest
+to devour at leisure. The ease with which those claws and teeth rent
+asunder the yielding flesh was an instructive sight for Wilbur, but the
+fact that the wild-cat should dare to go on striving to free her prey
+instead of slinking away in fright made the boy angry. Besides, he had
+come for that water.
+
+Wilbur decided to advance into the clearing anyway, and then, if the
+creature did not stir, he would be so near that he couldn't miss her
+with the revolver. As he grew angrier his fear began to leave him. He
+took the pot in his left hand, putting the long stick under his arm,
+and, drawing his six-shooter, advanced on the cat. He came forward
+slowly, but without hesitation. At his second step forward the wild-cat
+raised her head, but instead of springing at him, as Wilbur half feared,
+she retreated into the woods, leaving her prey, snarling as she went.
+Wilbur went boldly forward to the spring, and, thinking that he would
+see no more of the cat, put away his revolver.
+
+Having secured the water, and as he turned to go, however, the boy felt
+a sudden impulse to look up. He had not heard a sound, and yet, on a low
+branch a few feet above his head, crouched the wild-cat, her eyes
+glaring yellow in the waning light. Once again he felt the temptation to
+shoot her, but resisted it, through his fear of only wounding the
+creature and thus bringing her full fury upon him.
+
+But it occurred to Wilbur that it was not unlikely that he might have to
+come back to the spring a second time for more water, and he did not
+wish to risk another encounter. He thought to himself that if he did
+return and interrupted the wild-cat a second time he would not escape as
+easily as he had on this occasion, and consequently he tried to devise a
+means to prevent such meeting. He figured that if he picked up the
+rabbit and threw it far into the woods the cat would follow and the path
+to the spring would be open. Forgetting for the moment that he could not
+expect the angry creature in the tree to divine the honesty of his
+intentions, he stooped down and grasped the rabbit by the leg to throw
+it into the forest. As he did so, the wild-cat, thinking herself about
+to be deprived of her prey, sprang at him.
+
+With one hand holding the pot of water, which, boy-like, he did not want
+to spill, and the other grasping the rabbit, Wilbur was terribly
+handicapped. But, by the greatest good fortune, as he stooped, the
+crotch of the stick that he was carrying caught the wild-cat under the
+body as she launched herself at him from the tree. The stick was
+knocked out of the boy's grasp, but it also turned the cat aside, and
+she half fell, landing on Wilbur's outstretched leg, instead of on his
+neck, which was the objective point in her spring. As her claws ripped
+into the soft flesh of his thigh, Wilbur released his hold of the
+rabbit, drew his revolver, and fired full at the creature hanging on his
+leg.
+
+Almost instantaneously with the shot, however, one of her foreclaws shot
+out and caught the back of his right hand, making a long but superficial
+gash from the wrist to the knuckles. At the same time, too, one of her
+hind claws struck down, opening the calf of the leg and making the boy
+sick for a moment. His right hand was bleeding vigorously and paining a
+good deal, but his finger was still on the trigger and Wilbur fired
+again. A moment later, the Ranger came running into the clearing. But
+before he reached the boy's side the cat had fallen limply to the
+ground. The second shot had gone clear through her skull, and, being
+fired at point-blank distance, had almost blown her head off.
+
+The old Ranger, without wasting time in words, quickly examined the
+boy's injuries and found them slight, although they were bleeding
+profusely. Wilbur reached out the pot full of water from the spring.
+
+"Here's the water, Rifle-Eye," he said a little quaveringly; "I hardly
+spilled a drop."
+
+The old woodsman took the vessel without a word. Then he looked down at
+the cat.
+
+"Just as well for you," he said, "that it wasn't a true lynx. But how
+did she get at your leg? Did you walk on her, or kick her, just for
+fun?"
+
+Wilbur, laughing a little nervously from the reaction of the excitement,
+described how it was that the wild-cat had landed on his leg instead of
+on his neck, and the old hunter nodded.
+
+"It's a mighty lucky thing for you," he said, "that stick was there,
+because there's a heap o' places around the neck where a clawin' ain't
+healthy. But these scratches of yours won't take long to heal. Where you
+were a fool," he continued, "was in touchin' the rabbit at all. It's
+just as I told you. When you went quietly forward, you say, the bob-cat
+got out of your road all right. Of course, that's what she ought to do.
+And if you had filled the pot with water an' come away that's all
+there'd have been to it. But jest as soon as you begin ter get mixed up
+in the prey any varmint's killed, you've got ter begin considerin' the
+chances o' joinin' the select company o' victims."
+
+"But I wanted her out of the way for next time," said Wilbur.
+
+"She'd have got out of your way so quick you couldn't see her go," said
+the hunter, "if you'd given her a chance. Next time, leave a varmint's
+dinner alone."
+
+"Next time, I will," the boy declared.
+
+"I guess now," continued the old hunter, "you'd better come back to camp
+an' we'll see what we c'n do to improve them delicate attentions you've
+received. An' don't be quite the same kind of an idiot again."
+
+"Well," said Wilbur, "I got the water from the spring, anyhow."
+
+
+[Illustration: PATROLLING A COYOTE FENCE.
+
+The old Ranger and his hound safeguarding the grazing interests of the
+forest.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: REDUCING THE WOLF SUPPLY.]
+
+
+[Illustration: REDUCING THE WOLF SUPPLY.
+
+Sport that is worth while, freeing the National Forests from beasts of
+prey.
+
+_Photographs by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST
+
+
+Towards noon the next day, Wilbur and the Ranger rode up to the shack in
+the woods which Rifle-Eye considered as one of his headquarters. As soon
+as they reached the clearing they were met by a big, shambling youth,
+whose general appearance and hesitating air proclaimed him to be the
+half-witted lad of whom Wilbur had heard. He came forward and took the
+horses.
+
+"You've heard about Ben?" queried the hunter as the horses were being
+led away.
+
+"Yes," answered Wilbur, "Bob-Cat Bob told me all about the death of his
+father during the sheep and cattle war. He told me when we were riding
+up to the ranch, from the station at Sumber."
+
+"I have thought," said Rifle-Eye, "that perhaps it ain't quite the right
+thing to keep Ben here, up in the woods. But I tried sendin' him to
+school. It wasn't no manner of use. It only troubled the teacher an'
+bothered him, an' I reckon his life will stack up at the end jest as
+well, even if he can't read."
+
+"What does he do while you are away?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Oh, a lot of things. He ain't idle a minute, really, an' there's times
+that he's as good as them that thinks themselves so wise."
+
+"What sort of things?"
+
+"Well, he's done a lot o' work stampin' out the prairie dogs. Of course,
+there's very few o' them in these parts, so few that the government has
+made no appropriation for this forest. It's in Eastern Montana an' the
+Dakotas that you get them, an' there's been a lot o' trouble in the
+Custer an' Sioux forests. He's gone there several times, an' there's
+been villages o' them here among the foothills that Ben's cleared up
+entirely."
+
+"They poison the prairie dogs, don't they?"
+
+"Yes, with strychnine, mainly. Grain is soaked in the poison an' a few
+grains put outside each hole in a dog town. If this is done early in the
+year, before the green grass is up for food, it will pretty nearly clean
+up the town."
+
+"It seems rather a shame," said Wilbur, "they are such fat, jolly little
+fellows, and the way they sit up on their hind legs and look at you is
+a wonder."
+
+"It's all right for them to look 'fat and jolly,'" replied Rifle-Eye,
+"but when the stock raiser finds hundreds of acres of grass nibbled down
+to the roots, an' when the farmer's young wheat is ruined, they don't
+see so much jollity in it."
+
+"But I didn't know that the Forest Service took a hand in that sort of
+thing."
+
+"Only indirectly. But they provide the poison an' the settlers usually
+git some one to put it round. As I say, Ben's been doin' a lot of it
+this spring."
+
+"But that sort of work doesn't last long."
+
+"No, only in the spring. But Ben's busy other ways. Sometimes he goes
+down to the valleys an' helps the ranchers with their hayin'. He don't
+know anythin' about money, though, an' so they never pay him cash."
+
+"That's tough on Ben, then," remarked Wilbur. "Does he work all the time
+for nothing?"
+
+"Not at all. They always see that he gits a fair return. Every once in a
+while the man he's workin' for will drive up to the shack with some
+bacon an' a barrel o' flour an' trimmin's. Often as not, he'll bring
+the wife along, an' she'll go over the lad's things to find what he
+needs."
+
+"That's mighty nice," commented Wilbur.
+
+"Some of 'em are as good to Ben as if he was their own," said the
+Ranger. "They'll go over everything he's got, fix up whatever needs
+mendin', an' make a list o' things to be bought next time any one goes
+into town. You see, he gits his wages that way. He works well, an' so it
+ain't like charity, an' at the same time it gives the man he works for a
+chance to do the right thing."
+
+"I suppose if he didn't, you'd get after him," suggested the boy.
+
+"Never had to yet, an' never expect to," was the prompt reply. "Mostly
+folks is all right, an' a lot o' the supposed selfishness is jest
+because they ain't been reminded. And then Ben never makes trouble."
+
+"He seems quiet enough," said Wilbur, with a gesture towards the doorway
+where the lad was approaching. He came in and stood looking vacantly at
+the two sitting together.
+
+"What were you doin' yesterday, Ben?" asked the Ranger sharply to rouse
+him.
+
+The lad flung out both arms with a wild gesture.
+
+"I was away, away, far away," he answered; "away, away over the hills."
+
+"Where?"
+
+The half-witted lad passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"With Mickey," he said.
+
+"An' what were you an' Mickey doin'?"
+
+"Lots of things, lots, lots, lots. Little fires creep, creep, creepin'
+on the ground," he moved his hands waveringly backward and forward as
+though to show the progress of the flames, "then put them out quick,
+so!" he stamped his foot on the ground.
+
+"Does he mean a forest fire, Rifle-Eye?" queried Wilbur, alert at the
+very mention of fire.
+
+"No, no, no," interrupted Ben; "little bit fires. Pile burn, burn hot,
+grass catch fire, put out grass."
+
+"You mean," said the mountaineer, "that you an' Mickey were burnin' up
+brush?"
+
+"Yes, brush all in piles, burn."
+
+"It's a pretty risky business," said Rifle-Eye, "this burnin' brush in
+the late spring, but Mickey's right enough to have had Ben along. He's
+one o' the best fire-fighters that ever happened. He never knows enough
+to quit."
+
+"Did you have any trouble, Ben?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"One little fire, walk, walk, walk away into the woods. But I stopped
+him."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+The half-witted lad nodded. Then, coming over to Wilbur, he pointed to
+the rude bandages and said questioningly:
+
+"Tumble?"
+
+"No, Ben," replied the other boy, "I got into a mix-up with a bob-cat."
+
+"I fight, too. Wait, I show you something."
+
+He disappeared for a moment and then came back with two wolf pups,
+carrying one in each hand as he might a kitten.
+
+"I got five more," he said.
+
+"Where did you get 'em, Ben?" asked the Ranger.
+
+"Way, way over. Deadman Canyon."
+
+"Get the old wolf?"
+
+The half-witted lad nodded his head vigorously several times.
+
+"Yes," he said, "dead, dead, dead."
+
+"Was the den just by the Sentinel Pine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I reckon that's the wolf that's been givin' such a lot of trouble on
+the Arroyo," commented Rifle-Eye. "I went out after that wolf one day
+this spring, Ben, but I didn't get her. I waited at the den a long time,
+too."
+
+"Two holes out of den, two. I wait, too. Long, long time. No come out.
+Plug up one hole. Long more time waited. Then wolf go in. I go in, too."
+
+"You went into the wolf's den?" queried Wilbur in amazement.
+
+"Yes, in. Far, far in."
+
+"How far?"
+
+"Don't know. Far."
+
+"Well, I went in about forty feet myself," said the old hunter, "an' I
+didn't see any sign o' the pups, so I backed out again. If you went all
+the way in, Ben, I reckon it was a pretty long crawl."
+
+"But why did you go in the den when the mother wolf was there?" asked
+Wilbur.
+
+"Boy fool," said the half-witted lad, pointing at him. "Why go in if
+wolf not there?"
+
+"Well," said Wilbur, on the defensive, "I should think it a whole lot
+safer to go in--that is, if I was going in at all--sometime when I'd be
+sure the mother wolf wouldn't be there."
+
+But the other, still holding the cubs in his hands, negatived this
+reasoning with a vigorous shake of the head.
+
+"Safer, wolf in," he said.
+
+"I don't see that at all," objected Wilbur. "It can't be safer."
+
+"You go in, in far, when wolf out. By and by wolf come, eat up legs, no
+can turn round for shoot."
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," the boy said, a little humbled.
+
+"Ben's nearly right," said the Ranger, "an' it ain't really as dangerous
+as it sounds. There ain't room in the passage for the wolf to spring,
+an' if you shoot you're bound to hit her somewhere, no matter how you
+aim. O' course, a wolf ain't goin' to come along an' 'eat up your legs'
+the way he puts it, but you might get a nasty bite or two. It's a lot
+better to go after a wolf than have the wolf come after you. It takes
+more nerve, but it ain't so hard at that."
+
+"But how did you kill the old wolf, Ben?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"I go in, far in. See eyes glitter. Shoot once. Shoot twice. Old wolf
+dead. Take out pups, easy. Skin wolf."
+
+"Where's the skin?"
+
+"Dryin'."
+
+But Wilbur was by no means satisfied and he plied the half-witted lad
+with questions until he had secured all the details of the story. In the
+meantime the Ranger had been getting dinner, and as soon as it was over
+Wilbur was glad to lie down on Ben's bed, for he had lost not a little
+blood in his tussle with the wild-cat the night before, and riding all
+morning with those deep scratches only rudely bandaged had been rather a
+strain. By the time that Rifle-Eye was ready to start again Wilbur was
+fairly stiffened up, and at the Ranger's suggestion he agreed to stay on
+a couple of days in the shack, having Ben cook for him and look after
+him, as the Ranger felt that he himself ought to get back to
+headquarters.
+
+It was not until the third day that Wilbur once more got into the saddle
+and with Ben to guide him through the forest, started for the
+Supervisor's headquarters, or rather the Ranger's cabin where the
+Supervisor was staying. The two boys rode on and up, leaving behind the
+scrub oak, chapparal, and manzanita, and into the great yellow pine and
+sugar pine forests. Shortly before noontime they heard voices in the
+woods, and Ben, after listening a moment, turned from the trail. In a
+few minutes he reined up beside a tall, sunburned man, walking through
+the woods pencil and notebook in hand. At the same time the Ranger, who
+was working with him, stepped up.
+
+"Thanks, Ben," he said. Then, turning to the Supervisor, he said:
+"Merritt, here's the boy!"
+
+Wilbur's new chief stepped forward quickly and held out his hand with a
+word of greeting. Wilbur shook it heartily and decided on the spot that
+he was going to like him. Wearing khaki with the Forest Service bronze
+badge, a Stetson army hat, and the high lace boots customarily seen, he
+looked thoroughly equipped for business.
+
+"You're Wilbur Loyle," he said, "of course. I heard you were coming.
+Have you had any experience?"
+
+"Just the Colorado Ranger School, sir," said the boy.
+
+"You were to be here three days ago."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Merritt, but I was delayed, and I put up a couple of days with
+Ben, here."
+
+"He reckoned he had more right to a rabbit what a bob-cat was feastin'
+on than the cat had," volunteered Rifle-Eye in explanation. "In the
+ensooin' disagreement he got a bit scratched, an' so I looked after him.
+I told him to stay at Ben's, an' I guess he's all right now."
+
+"Being three days late isn't the best start in the world," said the
+Supervisor sharply, "but if Rifle-Eye knows all about it and is willing
+to stand for it, I won't say any more. Can you cruise?"
+
+"I've learned, sir, but I haven't done much of it. I think, though, I
+can do it, all right."
+
+"Very well. We'll break off for dinner now, and you can try this
+afternoon. Or do you still feel tired, and would you rather wait until
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Thanks, Mr. Merritt," answered Wilbur, "but I want to start right now."
+
+"Very well," said the Supervisor laconically. Then, turning to the
+Ranger, he commenced talking with him about the work in hand, and for
+the moment Wilbur was left aside. The lumberman who had been working on
+the other side of the Supervisor, however, sauntered up and introduced
+himself as "McGinnis, me boy, Red McGinnis, they call me, because of the
+natural beauty of me hair."
+
+"I'm very glad, Mr. McGinnis--" began the boy when the lumberman
+interrupted him.
+
+"'Tis very sorry ye'll be if ye call me out of me right name. Sure I
+said McGinnis, jest plain McGinnis, not Misther McGinnis. Ye can call me
+'Judge,' or 'Doctor,' or 'Colonel,' or annything else, but I won't be
+called Misther by annyone."
+
+"Very well, McGinnis," said the boy, looking at his height and broad
+shoulders, "I guess there's no one that will make you."
+
+"There is not!" the big lumberman replied. "And are ye goin' to join us
+in a little promenade through the timber?"
+
+"So Mr. Merritt said."
+
+"I don't see what for," the Irishman replied. "Sure, there's the three
+of us now."
+
+"Is there much of it to do?"
+
+"There is that. There's three million feet wanted, half sugar pine and
+half yellow pine, in this sale alone. An' there's another sale waiting,
+so I hear, as soon as this one's through."
+
+"Maybe it's just to find out whether I can do it?" suggested Wilbur.
+
+The lumberman nodded affirmatively.
+
+"That's just about it," he said. "Because ye'll have a big stretch to
+cover as Guard, an' there'll be no time for ye cruisin'. You keep the
+trees from burnin' up so as we can mark them for cuttin' down."
+
+"It always seems a shame," said Wilbur, "to have to cut down these
+trees. Of course, I know it's done so as to help the forest, not to hurt
+it, and that if the big trees weren't cut down the young ones couldn't
+get sunlight and wouldn't have a chance to grow. But still one hates to
+see a big tree go."
+
+"It isn't that way at all, at all," said the lumberman. "There's some
+that does their best work livin', and there's some that does it dead. A
+man does it livin' and a tree does it dead. But what a tree does after
+it's dead depends on what kind of a chance it's had when it's been
+livin'. Sure ye've been to the schools when all the girls and some of
+the boys gets into white dresses, the girls I mean, and sings songs, and
+gives speeches and class poems and other contraptions, and graduates."
+
+"I have," said Wilbur, "and not so long ago at that."
+
+"And so have I," answered the lumberman. "Sure, me own little Kathleen
+was graduated just a month ago from high school. Well, cuttin' down a
+tree is like its graduation. It's been livin' and growin' and gettin'
+big and strong and makin' up into good timber. Now its schoolin' in the
+forest is over, it's goin' out into the world, to be made useful in some
+kind of way, and in goin' it makes room for more."
+
+"You don't take kindly to the 'Oh, Woodman, spare that tree' ideal?"
+smiled Wilbur.
+
+"I do not. But I'd spare it, all right, until there were other young
+trees growin' near it to take its place in time. 'Tis the biggest part
+of the work is cuttin' down the trees that make the best timber."
+
+When they were settled drinking hot tea and eating some trout that the
+party had with them, the Supervisor turned to Wilbur.
+
+"McGinnis is a good man," he began, smiling as the Irishman with
+pantomime returned the compliment by drinking his health in a pannikin
+of tea, "but he's so built that he can't see straight. If you introduce
+McGinnis to a girl he'll want to estimate how many feet she'd make board
+measure."
+
+He dodged a pine cone which the Irishman threw at him.
+
+"How about Aileen?" he said.
+
+"I'll take that back," said Merritt; "Mrs. McGinnis hasn't gone to
+diameter growth. But," he continued, "she's good on clear length and has
+a fine crown."
+
+By which Wilbur readily understood that the lumberman's wife was slight,
+well-built, and neat, and with heavy hair. The lumberman, mollified by
+the tribute, returned to his dinner, and the Supervisor continued:
+
+"McGinnis told you that cutting down the best trees available for timber
+is the most important part of forest work. It's not. The most important
+thing is keeping the forest at its best. Cutting trees when they have
+reached their maximum is a most necessary part, and it's a policy that
+helps to make the forest pay for itself. But the value to the forest
+lies in its conservation. You know about that?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the boy; "it's keeping the watersheds from becoming
+deforested, either by cutting or by fire, and so preventing erosion from
+taking place."
+
+"I reckon," put in the old Ranger, "thar's another that pleases me still
+better than either of those."
+
+"And what's that, Rifle-Eye?" asked Merritt.
+
+"It's the plantin'. When I walk along some of the forest nurseries, an'
+see hundreds and hundreds of little seedlin's all growin' protected
+like, and bein' cared for just the same as if they was little children,
+an' when I know that in fifty years time they'll be big fine trees like
+the one we're sittin' under, I tell you it looks pretty good to me.
+They're such helpless little things, seedlin's, and they do have such a
+time to get a start. Nursery's a good name all right. I've been along
+some of 'em at night, when the moonlight was a shinin' down on them, and
+they wasn't really no different from children in their little beds."
+
+"I should think," said Wilbur, "that the changing of a forest from one
+kind of tree to another would be the most interesting. I mean getting
+rid of the worthless trees and giving the advantage to those that are
+finer."
+
+"And a few sections west," commented the Supervisor, "you would find
+that Bellwall, who's the Ranger there, thinks that the most interesting
+thing in the whole of the forest work is putting an end to the diseases
+of trees and to the insects that are a danger to them. Another Ranger
+may be a tree surgeon."
+
+"A tree surgeon doesn't help so much," put in McGinnis, "the timber is
+niver worth a whoop!"
+
+"There you go again," said the head of the forest, "there's other things
+to be thought of besides timber." He turned to the boy. "You don't know
+the trees of the Sierras, I suppose?"
+
+"I think I know them pretty well now," answered Wilbur. "I had to learn
+a lot about them at school, and then Rifle-Eye has been giving me
+pointers the last few days."
+
+"What's the difference between a yellow pine and a sugar pine?" queried
+the Supervisor.
+
+"Sugar pine wood is white and soft," said the boy, "yellow pine is hard,
+harder than any other pine except the long-leaf variety."
+
+"That's right enough. But how are you going to tell them when standing?"
+
+Wilbur thought for a moment.
+
+"I should think," he said, "that the yellow pine is a so much bigger
+tree as a rule that you could tell it by that alone. But I suppose a
+younger yellow pine might look like a sugar. The leaves would help,
+though, because I should think the sugar, like most of the soft pines,
+has its leaves in clusters of five in a sheath, and the yellow being a
+hard pine, has them in bundles of three."
+
+"How about the bark?"
+
+"Sugar pine bark is smoother," said the boy.
+
+The Supervisor nodded.
+
+"All right," he said, "we'll try you at it. You go along with McGinnis
+for an hour or so, to see just how he does it, and then you can take one
+side, and he the other. Just for a day or two, while Rifle-Eye looks
+after some other matters."
+
+Wilbur accordingly took a pair of calipers and walked with McGinnis back
+to where he had originally met the party. Resuming work the lumberman
+started through the forest, calling as he went the kind of trees and
+their approximate size. As, however, this particular portion of the
+forest had never been "cruised," McGinnis not only called and marked the
+trees which were to be cut in the sale, but also the other timber.
+
+Thus he would call, as he reached a tree, "Sugar, thirty-four, six," by
+which Wilbur understood him to mean that the tree was a sugar pine, that
+it was thirty-four inches in diameter breast high, and that it would cut
+into six logs of the regular sixteen-foot length. It probably would be
+thirty or fifty feet higher, but the top could only be used for posts,
+cordwood, and similar uses. Such a tree, having been estimated and
+adjudged fit for sale, the lumberman would make a blaze with a small ax,
+by slicing off a portion of bark about eight inches long, then turning
+the head of the ax, whereon was "U. S." in raised letters, he would
+whack the blaze, making a mark which was unchangeable. No other trees
+than those so marked might be cut.
+
+But as other trees were passed which were not good enough for
+merchantable timber, he would call these rapidly, "Cedar, small,"
+"Engelmann (spruce), eighteen," "Douglas (spruce), fourteen," all of
+which were entered by the Supervisor, walking behind, in his cruising
+book. At the same time he made full notes as to the condition of the
+young forest, the presence of parasitic plants such as mistletoe, of
+diseased trees, if any were found, of the nature of the soil, of the
+drainage of the forest, and of the best way in which the timber sale was
+to be logged in order to do the least possible damage to the forest.
+
+In a half an hour or so Wilbur dropped back to the Supervisor.
+
+"I think, sir," he said, "that I can do that without any trouble. But I
+can't do it as fast as McGinnis, sir, for he can tell the size of a
+tree just by looking at it. I shall have to use the calipers for a day
+or two."
+
+Merritt looked at him.
+
+"For a day or two?" he said. "McGinnis has been doing it for thirty
+years. In these Western forests, too. You take him to an Eastern forest
+and even now he wouldn't be sure of estimating correctly. You use the
+calipers for a year or two!"
+
+Wilbur, accordingly, quickened his pace, and, going along a little to
+the left and in advance of the Supervisor, took up his share of the
+work. He found that he had to depend entirely upon McGinnis for his
+compass direction, and that he was only doing about one tree to
+McGinnis' six, but still every hour that passed by gave him greater
+confidence. The afternoon was wearing away when suddenly they came to a
+part of the forest in which some timber seemed to have been cut during
+the winter preceding. McGinnis dropped back.
+
+"Sure, ye didn't tell me that any of this had been cut over," he said
+aggrievedly.
+
+"It hasn't, so far as I know," said Merritt. He put his book in his
+pocket and walked on briskly for a few hundred yards. Although the
+logging had been done the preceding winter the signs were clear for
+those who could read them determining the direction in which the logs
+had been taken.
+
+"That's Peavey Jo's work," said the Supervisor at last. "I reckon this
+is where he begins to find trouble on his hands. We'll find out,
+McGinnis, how much of this timber he has stolen, measure up the stumps
+and make him pay for every stick he's taken."
+
+"Ye'd better leave Peavey Jo alone. They used to call him 'The Canuck
+Brute,'" remarked McGinnis.
+
+"He will pay," repeated Merritt quietly, "for every foot that he's got.
+And I'll see that he does."
+
+"You'll have the fight of your life."
+
+"What of it! You don't want to back out?"
+
+"Back out? Me? I will not! But it'll be a jim-dandy of a scrap."
+
+The Supervisor turned to Wilbur.
+
+"Measure," he said, "the diameter of all those stumps and mark with a
+bit of chalk those you have measured. We'll talk to Peavey Jo in a day
+or two."
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE BEN AND MICKEY BURNED THE BRUSH.
+
+Getting rid of slashings which otherwise might feed a forest fire.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE CABIN OF THE OLD RANGER.
+
+Where Wilbur stayed a couple of days recovering from the wild-cat's
+scratches.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: STAMPING IT GOVERNMENT PROPERTY.
+
+McGinnis marking "U. S." on timber that has been scaled and measured up.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WILBUR IN HIS OWN CAMP
+
+
+"I should think," said Wilbur at headquarters that night, when the
+timber theft of Peavey Jo was being discussed, "that it would be mighty
+hard to prove that the timber had been taken."
+
+"Why?" asked the Supervisor.
+
+"Well, we can see how the logs were drawn, and so forth, but you can't
+bring those driveways into court very well, and put them before the
+judge as Exhibit A, or anything?"
+
+"You could bring affidavits, couldn't you? But there are few who want to
+go to law about it. A man knows he can't buck the government on a fake
+case. We have very little trouble now, but there used to be a lot of
+it."
+
+"Did you ever have to use weapons, Mr. Merritt?" asked the boy,
+remembering the story he had heard in Washington about the tie-cutters.
+
+"No," was the instant reply. "You don't handle people with a gun any
+more in California than you do in New York. These aren't the days of
+Forty-nine."
+
+"But I thought the 'old-timers' still carried guns," persisted the boy.
+
+"Very few do now. But I got into trouble once, or thought I was going
+to, when I was a Ranger in the Gunnison Forest. It involved some Douglas
+fir telephone poles. This trespass was done while I was in town for a
+while in the Supervisor's office. When I came back I happened to pass by
+this man's camp, and seeing a lot of telephone poles, I asked if they
+had been cut in the forest. The man was a good deal of a bully, and he
+ordered me off the place. He said he didn't have to answer any
+questions, and wasn't going to."
+
+"Did you go?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Certainly I went. What would be the use of staying around there? But
+before I left I got a kind of an answer. He said he had shipped in these
+telephone poles from another part of the State."
+
+"Sure, that was a fairy tale," said McGinnis.
+
+"Of course it was. I went into the forest and searched around, although
+there had been a recent fall of snow, until I found the place where most
+of the poles had been cut. Then I went back to the trespasser and told
+him, saying I would prove to him that it was on government ground.
+
+"He agreed, and we rode to the place. He took his Winchester along and
+carried it over his shoulder. He wasn't carrying it in the usual way,
+but had his hand almost level with his shoulder so that the barrel
+pointed in my direction. I noticed, too, that he was playing with the
+trigger. It seemed likely that it might suit his purposes rather well if
+I was accidentally killed. But each time I cantered up close to him, the
+barrel returned to its natural position.
+
+"Presently, as we rode along, we came to a waterfall, not a big one, but
+falling with quite a splashing, and under the cover of the noise I
+suddenly came to a quick gallop, overtook the trespasser, and, grasping
+his Winchester firmly with both hands, jerked it out of his grasp."
+
+"Sure, he must have been the maddest thing that iver happened!" said
+McGinnis.
+
+"He was sore, all right. But what could he do? I had the rifle, and we
+neither of us had any six-shooters. I showed him that there was no
+object in my shooting him, while he would gain by shooting me, so I
+proposed to hold the gun. And hold it I did. On my return I put a
+notice of seizure on the poles.
+
+"The report went through the usual way to the Commissioner of the
+General Land Office. He wrote me a letter direct about the case and put
+it up to me to ask the trespasser what proposition of settlement he
+intended to make. I thought the town was the best place for this and
+waited at the post-office for a day or two until he came in. There I
+tackled him, and told him he would have to notify the Department
+immediately. At this, he and his son invited me outside to fight it out.
+I told them I did not intend to fight, but that if within thirty minutes
+they did not make a proposition of settlement I would telegraph to the
+Department and his case would become one for harsher measures.
+
+"The postmaster set out to convince him that Uncle Sam was too big a job
+for him to handle, and in twenty minutes or so back he came with an
+offer which was forwarded to the Department. A year or so later the case
+was settled by a Special Agent."
+
+McGinnis added several similar stories of timber difficulties, and,
+supper being over, they got ready to turn in. The headquarters was a
+most comfortable house, fairly large, having been built by the previous
+Ranger, who was married. It was now used by another Ranger, as well as
+Rifle-Eye, being near the borders of their two districts, and having
+plenty of good water and good feed near. But although it was barely
+dark, Wilbur was tired enough to be glad to stretch himself on the cot
+in the little room and sink to sleep amid the soughing of the wind
+through the pine needles of neighboring forest giants one and two
+hundred feet high.
+
+Early the next morning, Wilbur tumbled up, went out and looked after his
+horses, and came in hungry to breakfast.
+
+"I had intended," said the Supervisor, "to go with you this morning and
+show you the part of the range you are to look after. But I want to get
+at Peavey Jo, lest he should decide to leave suddenly, and Rifle-Eye
+will show you the way instead. I had the tent pitched three or four days
+ago, when you ought to have been here. You'll find that to cover your
+range takes about six hours' good riding a day. Use a different horse,
+of course, each day, and remember that your horse in some ways is fully
+as important as you are. You can stand a heap of things that he can't.
+A man will tire out any animal that breathes."
+
+"And what have I to do?"
+
+"You have three trails to ride, on three successive days, so that you
+will have a chance of seeing all your range, or points that will command
+all your range at least twice a week. And, of course, quite a good deal
+of it you will cover daily. You are to watch out for fires, and if you
+see one, put it out. If you can't put it out alone, ride back to your
+camp and telephone here, as soon as it is evening. Sometimes it is
+better to keep working alone until you know there's some one to answer
+the 'phone, sometimes it's better to get help right away. You can tell
+about that when you have got to the fire and have seen what it is."
+
+Wilbur nodded.
+
+"That's easy enough to follow," he said.
+
+"If a heavy rain comes, you had better ride back here, because for a few
+days after a big rain a fire isn't likely to start, and there's always
+lots of other stuff to be done in the forest, trail-building, and things
+of that sort."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Merritt," answered the boy.
+
+"There are no timber sales going on in that section of the forest, so
+that if you see any cutting going on, just ride up quietly and get into
+conversation with the people cutting and casually find out their names.
+Ask no other questions, but in the evening telephone to me."
+
+"The telephone must be a big convenience. But," added Wilbur, "it seems
+to take away the primitiveness of it, somehow."
+
+"Wilbur," said the Supervisor seriously, "you don't want to run into the
+mistake of thinking that life on a national forest is principally a
+picturesque performance. It's a business that the government is running
+for the benefit of the country at large. Anything that can be done to
+make it efficient is tremendously important. The telephone already has
+saved many a fearful night ride through bad places of the forest, has
+been the means of stopping many a fire, and has saved many a life in
+consequence. I think that's a little more important than
+'primitiveness,' as you call it."
+
+The boy accepted the rebuke silently. Indeed, there was nothing more to
+say.
+
+"As for grazing, there's not much to be said, except that the sheep
+limits are pretty well defined. The cattle can wander up the range
+without doing much harm here, for the young forest is of pretty good
+growth, but the sheep must stay down where they belong. Rifle-Eye will
+show you where, and sheep notices have been posted all along the limits.
+And if there's anything you don't know, ask. And I guess that's about
+all."
+
+The Supervisor rose to go, but Wilbur stopped him.
+
+"How am I to arrange about supplies?" he said.
+
+"The tent's near a spring," was the brief but all-embracing reply.
+"There's a lake near by with plenty of trout, there's flour and
+groceries and canned stuff in a cache, and the Guard that was there last
+year had some kind of a little garden. You can see what there is, and if
+you want seeds of any kind, let me know. And there's nothing to prevent
+you shooting rabbits, though they're not much good this time of year."
+
+"I'll get along all right, Mr. Merritt," said Wilbur confidently.
+
+"I'll ride over on Sunday and see you anyway," added the Supervisor as
+he strode through the doorway, meeting McGinnis, who was waiting for him
+outside. Wilbur followed him to the door.
+
+"'Tis all the luck in the world I'm wishin' ye," shouted the big
+Irishman, "an' while ye're keepin' the fires away we'll be gettin'
+another nicely started for that old logjammer. Sure, we'll make it hot
+enough for him."
+
+"Good hunting," responded Wilbur with a laugh, as the two men
+disappeared under the trees.
+
+Although only a day had passed since Wilbur had met the Supervisor and
+McGinnis, it seemed to him that several days must have elapsed, so much
+had happened, and he found it hard to believe, when he found himself in
+the saddle again beside the old Ranger, that they had started from Ben's
+shack only the morning before.
+
+"I like Mr. Merritt," he said as soon as they had got started. "I like
+McGinnis, too."
+
+"I reckon he wasn't over-pleased with your bein' late?" queried
+Rifle-Eye.
+
+"He wasn't," admitted the boy candidly, "but I don't blame him for that.
+I liked him just the same. But I don't think it's safe to monkey with
+him. Now, McGinnis is easygoing and good-natured."
+
+"So is a mountain river runnin' down a smooth bed. The river is just the
+same old river when rocks get in the road, but it acts a lot different.
+Now, Merritt, when he's satisfied and when he ain't, don't vary, but I
+tell you, McGinnis can show white water sometimes."
+
+"I don't think I'm aching to be that rock," said Wilbur with a grin.
+
+"Wa'al," said the Ranger, "I ain't filed no petition for the nomination,
+not yet."
+
+"But tell me, Rifle-Eye," said the boy, "what is McGinnis? He isn't a
+Guard, is he? and he doesn't talk like a Ranger from another part of the
+forest."
+
+"No, he's an expert lumberman," replied the hunter. "He isn't attached
+to this forest at all. He ain't even under the service of the government
+all the while. He generally is, because he knows his business an' the
+Forest Service knows a good man when it sees one. They engage him for a
+month, or three, or four months, an' he goes wherever there's a timber
+sale, or a big cut. Often as not, he teaches the Rangers a heap of
+things they don't know about lumberin', and the Forest Assistants
+themselves ain't above takin' practical pointers from him."
+
+"But I thought Mr. Merritt said that McGinnis only knew this kind of
+forest?"
+
+"He said McGinnis wouldn't know anything of an Eastern hardwood forest.
+That's right. But the government hasn't got any hardwood forests yet,
+though I guess they soon will in the Appalachians. But you can't lose
+him in any kind of pine. I've met up with him from Arizona to Alaska."
+
+The old woodsman turned sharply from the trail, apparently into the
+unbroken forest.
+
+"Do you see the trail?" he asked.
+
+Wilbur looked on the ground to see if he could discern any traces. Not
+doing so, he looked up at the Ranger, who had half turned in the saddle
+to watch him. As he shook his head in denial he noticed the old
+mountaineer looking at him with grieved surprise.
+
+"What do you reckon you were lookin' on the ground for?" he asked.
+
+"For the trail," said Wilbur.
+
+"Did ye think this was a city park?" said Rifle-Eye disgustedly.
+
+"Well, I never saw a trail before that you couldn't see," responded
+Wilbur defiantly.
+
+The old hunter stopped his horse.
+
+"Turn half round," he said. Wilbur did so. "Now," he continued, "can you
+see any trail through there?"
+
+The boy looked through the long cool aisles of trees, realizing that he
+could ride in any direction without being stopped by undergrowth, but he
+could see nothing that looked like a trail.
+
+"Now turn round and look ahead," said the hunter.
+
+The moment Wilbur turned he became conscious of what the old mountaineer
+wanted to show him. Not a definite sign could he see, the ground was
+untrampled, the trees showed no blaze marks, yet somehow there was a
+consciousness that in a certain direction there was a way.
+
+"Yes," he said vaguely. "I can't see it, but I feel somehow that there's
+a trail through there." He pointed between two large spruces that stood
+near.
+
+The hunter slapped his pony on the neck.
+
+"Get up there, Milly," he said, "we'll teach him yet! You see," he
+continued, "there ain't no manner of use in tryin' to see a trail. If
+the trail's visible, the worst tenderfoot that ever lived could follow
+it. It's the trail that you can't see that you've got to learn to
+follow."
+
+"And how do you do it, Rifle-Eye?" asked the boy.
+
+"Same as you did just now. There's just a mite of difference where folks
+have ridden, there's perhaps just a few seedlin's been trodden down,
+an' there's a line between the trees that's just a little straighter
+than any animal's runway. But it's so faint that the more you think
+about it, the less sure you are. But, by an' by, you get so that you
+couldn't help followin' it in any kind of weather." And the old hunter,
+seeing the need of teaching Wilbur the intricacies of the pine country
+forests, gave him hint after hint all the way to his little camp.
+
+When he got there Wilbur gave an exclamation of delight. The camp, as
+the Supervisor had said, was near a little spring, which indeed bubbled
+from the hillside not more than ten feet away from the tent, and
+gleaming on the slope a couple of hundred feet below, he could see the
+little lake which was "so full of trout" glistening itself like a silver
+fish in the sunlight. A tall flagstaff, with a cord all reeved for the
+flag, stood by the tent, and for the realities of life a strong,
+serviceable telephone was fastened to a tree.
+
+Wilbur turned to the hunter, his eyes shining.
+
+"What a daisy place!" he cried.
+
+The old hunter smiled at his enthusiasm.
+
+"Let's see the tent," he said, and was about to leap from his horse when
+the hunter called him.
+
+"I reckon, son," he said, "there's somethin' you're forgettin'."
+
+"What's that?" said Wilbur.
+
+"Horses come first," said Rifle-Eye. "It's nigh dinner-time now. Where's
+the corral?"
+
+But Wilbur's spirits were not to be dampened by any check.
+
+"Is there a corral?" he said. "How bully! Oh, yes, I remember now Mr.
+Merritt said there was. Where is it, Rifle-Eye? Say, this is a jim-dandy
+of a camp!"
+
+A few steps further they came to the corral, a pretty little meadow in a
+clearing, and in the far corner of it the stream which trickled from the
+spring near the house. Wilbur unsaddled with a whoop and turned the
+horses in the corral, then hurried back to the camp. The old hunter,
+thinking perhaps that the boy would rather have the feeling of doing it
+all himself for the first time, had not gone near the tent. There was a
+small outer tent, which was little more than a strip of canvas thrown
+over a horizontal pole and shielding a rough fireplace for rainy
+weather, and within was the little dwelling-tent, with a cot, and even a
+tiny table. On the ground was Wilbur's pack, containing all the things
+he had sent up when he had broken his journey to go to the Double Bar
+J ranch, and there, upon the bed, all spread out in the fullness of its
+glory, was a brand-new Stars and Stripes. For a moment the boy's breath
+was taken away, then, with a dash, he rushed for it, and fairly danced
+out to the flagpole, where he fastened it and ran it to the truck,
+shouting as he did so. His friend, entering into the boy's feelings,
+solemnly raised his hat, as the flag settled at the peak and waved in
+the wind. Wilbur, turning, saw the old scout saluting, and with stirring
+patriotism, saluted, too.
+
+"And now," said the old hunter. "I'll get dinner."
+
+"That you'll not," said Wilbur indignantly. "I guess this is my house,
+and you're to be my first guest."
+
+
+[Illustration: WILBUR'S OWN CAMP.
+
+His first photograph; taken the day the Supervisor dropped in to see
+him.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+DOWNING A GIANT LUMBERJACK
+
+
+"I don't believe," said Wilbur the next morning as they rode along the
+trail that led to the nearest of his "lookout points," "that any king or
+emperor ever had as fine a palace as this one."
+
+The comparison was a just one. Throughout the part of the forest in
+which they were riding the whole sensation was of being roofed in and
+enclosed, the roof itself being of shifting and glowing green, through
+which at infrequent intervals broad streams of living light poured in,
+gilding with a golden bronze the carpet of pine needles, while the
+purple brown shafts of the trunks of the mighty trees formed a colonnade
+illimitable.
+
+"I reckon every kind of palace," replied the Ranger, "had some sort of a
+forest for a pattern. I took an artist through the Rockies one time, an'
+he showed me that every kind of buildin' that had ever been built, and
+every kind of trimmin's that had been devised had started as mere copies
+of trees an' leaves."
+
+"Well," said Wilbur, his mind going back to a former exclamation of the
+old woodsman, "you said this was your house."
+
+"My house it is," said Rifle-Eye, "an' if you wait a few minutes I'll
+show you the view from one of my windows."
+
+For two hours the hunter and the boy had been riding up a sharp slope,
+in places getting off their horses so as to give them the benefit of as
+little unnecessary carrying as possible, constantly ascending on a great
+granite spur twenty miles wide, between the Kaweah and King's River
+canyons. Now, suddenly they emerged from the shadowy roof of the forest
+to the bare surface of a ridge of granite.
+
+"There's the real world," said Rifle-Eye; "it ain't goin' to hurt your
+eyes to look at it, same as a city does, and your own little worryin's
+soon drop off in a place like this."
+
+He turned his horse slightly to the left, where a small group of
+mountain balsam, growing in a cleft of the granite, made a spot of
+shadow upon the very precipice's brink. The boy looked around for a
+minute or two without speaking, then said softly: "How fine!"
+
+Three thousand feet below, descending in bold faces of naked rugged
+rock, broken here and there by ledges whereon mighty pines found
+lodgment, lay the valley of King's River, a thin, winding gleam of green
+with the water a silver thread so fine as only to be seen at intervals.
+Here and there in the depths the bottom widened to a quarter of a mile,
+and there the sunlight, falling on the young grass, gave a brilliancy of
+green that was almost startling in contrast with the dark foliage of the
+pines.
+
+"What do you call that rock?" asked the boy, pointing to a tall,
+pyramidal mass of granite, buttressed with rock masses but little less
+noble than the central peak, between each buttress a rift of snow,
+flecked here and there by the outline of a daring spruce clinging to the
+rock, apparently in defiance of all laws of gravity.
+
+"That is called 'Grand Sentinel,'" said the hunter, "and if you will
+take out your glasses you will see that from here you can overlook miles
+and miles of country to the west. This is about as high as any place on
+the south fork of the King's River until it turns north where Bubbs
+Creek runs into it."
+
+Wilbur took out from their case his field-glasses and scanned the
+horizon carefully as far as he could see, then snapping them back into
+the case, he turned to the hunter, saying:
+
+"No fire in sight here!"
+
+"All right," replied Rifle-Eye, "then we'll go on to the next point."
+
+That whole day was a revelation to Wilbur of the beauty and of the size
+of that portion of the forest which it was his especial business to
+oversee. Here and there the Ranger made a short break from the direct
+line of the journey to take the boy down to some miner's cabin or Indian
+shack, so that, as he expressed it, "you c'n live in a world of friends.
+There ain't no man livin', son," he continued, "but what'll be the
+better of havin' a kind word some day, an' the more of them you give,
+the more you're likely to have."
+
+Owing to these deviations from the direct trail, it was late when they
+returned to Wilbur's little camp. But not even the lateness of the hour,
+nor the boy's fatigue, could keep down his delight in his tent home. He
+was down at the corral quite a long time, and when he came back
+Rifle-Eye asked him where he had been. The boy flushed a little.
+
+"I hadn't seen Kit all day," he said, "so I went down and had a little
+talk to her."
+
+The Ranger smiled and said nothing but looked well pleased. In the
+meantime he had quickly prepared supper, and Wilbur started in and ate
+as though he would never stop. At last he leaned back and sighed aloud.
+
+"That's the best dinner I ever ate," he said; "I never thought fish
+could taste so good."
+
+But he jumped up again immediately and took the dishes down to the
+spring to wash them. He had just dipped the plates into the pool under
+the spring when the old woodsman stopped him.
+
+"You don't ever want to do that," he said. "There ain't any manner of
+use in foulin' a stream that you'll want to use all the time. Little
+bits of food, washin' off the plates, will soon make that water bad if
+you let them run in there. An' not only is that bad for you, but ef
+you'll notice, it's the overflow from that little pool that runs down
+through the meadow."
+
+"And it would spoil the drinking water for the horses," exclaimed
+Wilbur; "I hadn't thought of that. I'm awfully glad you're along,
+Rifle-Eye, for I should be making all sorts of mistakes."
+
+Under the advice of his friend Wilbur washed up and put away the dishes
+and then settled down for the evening. He made up his day's report, and
+then thought he would write a long letter. But he had penned very, few
+sentences when he began to get quite sleepy and to nod over the paper.
+The Ranger noted it, and told him promptly to go to bed.
+
+"I'll finish this letter first," said Wilbur.
+
+A moment or two later he was again advised to turn in, and again Wilbur
+persisted that he would finish the letter first. There was a short
+pause.
+
+"Son," said Rifle-Eye, "what do you suppose you are ridin' from point to
+point of the forest for?"
+
+"To see if there's any sign of fire," said the boy.
+
+"And you've got to look pretty closely through those glasses o' yours,
+don't you?"
+
+The boy admitted that they were a little dazzling and that he had to
+look all he knew how.
+
+"Then, if you make your eyes heavy and tired for the next mornin',
+you're robbin' the Service of what they got you for--your eyesight,
+ain't you? I ain't forcin' you, noways. I'm only showin' you what's the
+square thing."
+
+Wilbur put forward his chin obstinately, then, thinking of the kindness
+he had received from the Ranger all the way through, and realizing that
+he was in the right, said:
+
+"All right, Rifle-Eye, I'll turn in."
+
+About half an hour later, just as the old woodsman stretched himself on
+his pile of boughs outside the tent, he heard the boy mutter:
+
+"I hope I'll never have to live anywhere but here."
+
+The following day and the next were similar in many ways to the first.
+Wilbur and the Ranger rode the various trails, the boy learning the
+landmarks by which he might make sure that he was going right, and
+making acquaintance with the few settlers who lived in his portion of
+the forest. On Sunday morning, however, the Ranger told the boy he must
+leave him to his own devices.
+
+"I've put in several days with you gettin' you started," he said, "an' I
+reckon I'd better be goin' about some other business. There's a heap o'
+things doin' all the time, an' as it is I'm pressed to keep up. But
+I'll drop in every now an' again, an' you're allers welcome at
+headquarters."
+
+"I hate to have you go, Rifle-Eye," the boy replied, "and you certainly
+have been mighty good to me. I'll try not to forget all the things
+you've told me, and I'll look forward to seeing you again before long."
+
+"I'll come first chance I can," replied the hunter. "Take care of
+yourself."
+
+"Good-by, Rifle-Eye," called the boy, "and I'll look for your coming
+back." He watched the old man until he was lost to sight and then waited
+until the sound of the horse's hoofs on the hillside had ceased. He
+found a lump in his throat as he turned away, but he went into the tent,
+and went over his reports to see if they read all right before the
+Supervisor arrived. Then, thinking that it was likely his chief would
+come about noon, he exerted himself trying to make up an extra good
+dinner. He caught some trout, and finding some lettuce growing in the
+little garden, got it ready for salad, and then mixed up the batter for
+some "flapjacks," as the old hunter had shown him how. He had everything
+ready to begin the cooking, and was writing letters when he heard his
+guest coming up the trail, and went out to meet him.
+
+After Wilbur had made his reports and got dinner, for both of which he
+received a short commendation, the Supervisor broached the question of
+the timber trespass.
+
+"Loyle," he said, "McGinnis and I have measured up the lumber stolen.
+There's about four and a half million feet. You were with us when we
+first located the trespass, and I want you to come with us to the mill."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Merritt," answered the boy.
+
+"I don't want you to do any talking at all, unless I ask you a question.
+Then answer carefully and in the fewest words you can. Don't tell me
+what you think. Say what you know. I'll do all the talking that will be
+necessary."
+
+Wilbur thought to himself that the conversation probably would not be
+very long, but he said nothing.
+
+"That is," continued the other as an afterthought, "McGinnis and I. I
+don't suppose he can be kept quiet."
+
+Wilbur grinned.
+
+"But he usually knows what he is talking about, I should think," he
+hazarded.
+
+"He does--on lumber." Then, with one of the abrupt changes of topic,
+characteristic of the man, the Supervisor turned to the question of
+intended improvements in that part of the forest where Wilbur was to be.
+He showed himself to be aware that the lad's appointment as Guard was
+not merely a temporary affair, but a part of his training to fit himself
+for higher posts, and accordingly explained matters more fully than he
+would otherwise have done. Reaching the close of that subject he rose to
+go suddenly. He looked around the tent.
+
+"Got everything you want?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, indeed, sir," the boy replied. "It's very comfortable here."
+
+"Got a watch?"
+
+"No, Mr. Merritt, not now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Mine got lost in that little trouble I had with the bob-cat, and I
+didn't notice it until next day."
+
+"Saw you hadn't one the other day. Take this."
+
+He pulled a watch out of his pocket and handed it to the boy.
+
+"But, Mr. Merritt," began the boy, "your watch? Oh, I couldn't--"
+
+"Got another. You'll need it." He turned and walked out of the tent.
+
+Wilbur overtook him on the way to the corral.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Merritt--" he began, but his chief turned sharply round on him.
+The boy, for all his impulsiveness, could read a face, and he checked
+himself. "Thank you very much, indeed," he ended quietly. He got out the
+Supervisor's horse, and as the latter swung himself into the saddle, he
+said:
+
+"What time to-morrow, Mr. Merritt?"
+
+"Eleven, sharp," was the reply. "So long."
+
+Wilbur looked after him as he rode away.
+
+"That means starting by daybreak," he said aloud. "Well, I don't think
+I'm going to suffer from sleeping sickness on this job, anyway." And he
+went back into the tent to finish the letter which he had started two
+evenings before and never had a chance to complete.
+
+By dawn the next morning Wilbur was on the trail. He was giving himself
+more time than he needed, but he had not the slightest intention of
+arriving late, neither did he wish the flanks of his horse to show that
+he had been riding hard. For the boy was perfectly sure that not a
+detail would escape the Supervisor's eye. Accordingly, he was able to
+take the trip quietly and trotted easily into camp a quarter of an hour
+ahead of time. He was heartily welcomed by McGinnis, while Merritt told
+him to go in and get a snack, as they would start in a few minutes.
+There was enough to make a good meal, and Wilbur was hungry after riding
+since dawn, so that he had just got through when the other two men rode
+up. He hastily finished his last mouthful, jumped up, and clambered into
+the saddle after the Supervisor, who had not waited a moment to see if
+he were ready.
+
+Merritt set a fairly fast pace, and the trail was only intended for
+single file, so that there was no conversation for an hour or more. Then
+the head of the forest pulled up a little and conversed with McGinnis
+briefly for a while, resuming his rapid pace as soon as they were
+through. Once, and once only, did he speak to Wilbur, and that was just
+as they got on the road leading to the sawmill. There he said:
+
+"Think all you like, but don't say it."
+
+When they reached the mill they passed the time of day with several of
+the men, who seemed glad to see them, and a good deal of good-natured
+banter passed between McGinnis and the men to whom he was well known.
+The Supervisor sent word that he wanted to see the boss, and presently
+Peavey Jo came out to meet them.
+
+"Salut, Merritt!" he said; "I t'ink it's long time since you were here,
+hey?"
+
+The words as well as the look of the man told Wilbur his race and
+nation. Evidently of French origin, possibly with a trace of Indian in
+him, this burly son of generations of voyageurs looked his strength.
+Wilbur had gone up one winter to northern Wisconsin and Michigan where
+some of the big lumber camps were, and he knew the breed. He decided
+that Merritt's advice was extremely good; he would talk just as little
+as he had to.
+
+The Supervisor wasted no time on preliminary greetings. That was not his
+way.
+
+"How much lumber did you cut last winter off ground that didn't belong
+to you?" he queried shortly.
+
+"Off land not mine?"
+
+"You heard my question!"
+
+"I cut him off my own land," said the millman with an injured
+expression.
+
+"Some of it."
+
+"You scale all the logs I cut. You mark him. I sell him. All right."
+
+"You tell it well," commented the Supervisor tersely. "But it don't go,
+Jo. How much was there?"
+
+"I tell you I cut him off my land."
+
+Merritt pointedly took his notebook from his breastpocket.
+
+"Liars make me tired," he announced impartially.
+
+"You call me a liar--" began the big lumberman savagely, edging up to
+the horse.
+
+"Not yet. But I probably will before I'm through," was the unperturbed
+reply.
+
+"You say all the same that I am a liar, is it not?"
+
+"Not yet, anyway. What does it matter? You cut four and a half million
+feet, a little over."
+
+A smile passed over the faces of the men attached to the sawmill. It was
+evident that a number of them must know about the trespass, and probably
+thought that Peavey Jo had been clever in getting away with it. The
+mill-owner laughed.
+
+"You t'ink I keep him in my pocket, hey?" he queried. "Four and a half
+million feet is big enough to see. You have a man here, he see logs, he
+mark logs, I cut them."
+
+The Supervisor swung himself from his horse and handed the reins to
+Wilbur. McGinnis did the same.
+
+"You don't need to get down, Loyle," he said; "it will not take long to
+find where the logs are."
+
+The big lumberman stepped forward with an angry gleam in his eye.
+
+"This my mill," he said. "You have not the right to walk it over."
+
+"This is a National Forest," was the sharp reply, "and I'm in charge of
+it. I'll go just wherever I see fit. Who'll stop me?"
+
+"Me, Josef La Blanc--I stop you."
+
+Just then Wilbur, glancing over the circle of men, saw standing among
+them Ben, the half-witted boy who lived in the old hunter's cabin.
+Seeing that he was observed, the lad sidled over to Wilbur and said, in
+a low voice, questioningly:
+
+"Plenty, plenty logs? No marked?"
+
+"Yes," said Wilbur, wondering that he should have followed the
+discussion so closely.
+
+"I know where!"
+
+"You do?" queried Wilbur.
+
+Ben nodded his head a great many times, until Wilbur thought it would
+fall off. In the meantime Merritt and Peavey Jo, standing a few feet
+apart, had been eying each other. Presently the Supervisor stepped
+forward:
+
+"Show me those logs," he ordered.
+
+"You better keep back, I t'ink," growled the millman.
+
+Merritt stepped forward unconcernedly, but was met with an open-hand
+push that sent him reeling backward.
+
+"I not want to fight you," he cried; "I get a plenty fight when I want
+him. You no good; can't fight."
+
+"I'm not going to fight," said the Supervisor, "but I'm going to see
+where those logs are, or were. Stand aside!"
+
+But the big Frenchman planted himself squarely in the way.
+
+"If you hunt for the trouble," he said, "you get him sure," he said
+menacingly.
+
+"I'm not hunting for trouble, Jo, and you know it But I'm hunting logs,
+and I'll find them."
+
+He was just about to step forward, trusting to quickness to dodge the
+blow that he could see would be launched at him, when Ben, who had been
+whispering to Wilbur, lurched over to the Supervisor and pulled his arm.
+
+"Plenty, plenty logs, no mark," he said loudly; "I know where. I show
+you. They are up--"
+
+But he never finished the sentence, for the lumberman, taking one step
+forward, drove his left fist square at the side of the boy's jaw,
+dropping him insensible before he could give the information which
+Merritt was seeking.
+
+But unexpected as the blow had been, it was met scarcely a second later
+by an equally unexpected pile-driver jolt from McGinnis.
+
+"Ye big murdhering spalpeen," burst out the angry Irishman, "ye think
+it's a fine thing to try and shtop a man that's trying to do his duty,
+and think yerself a fightin' man, bekass ye can lick a man that doesn't
+want to fight. This isn't any Forest Service scrap, mind ye, and I'm
+saying nothing about logs. I'm talking about your hittin' a weak,
+half-crazed boy. Ye're a liar and a coward, Peavey Jo, and a dirty one
+at that."
+
+"Keep quiet, McGinnis," said Merritt, who was stooping down over the
+insensible lad, "we'll put him in jail for this."
+
+"Ye will, maybe," snorted the Irishman, "afther he laves the hospital."
+
+"You make dis your bizness, hey?" queried the mill-owner.
+
+"I'll make it your funeral, ye sneaking half-breed Canuck! How about
+it, boys," he added turning to the crowd, "do I get fair play?"
+
+A chorus of "Sure," "'Twas a dirty trick," "The kid didn't know no
+better," and similar cries showed how the sentiment of the crowd lay. In
+a moment McGinnis and the Frenchman had stripped their coats and faced
+each other. The mill-owner was by far the bigger man, and the play of
+his shoulders showed that his fearful strength was not muscle bound, but
+he stood ponderously; on the other hand, the Irishman, who, while tall,
+was not nearly as heavy, only seemed to touch the ground, his step was
+so light and springy.
+
+The Frenchman rushed, swinging as he did so. A less sure fighter would
+have given ground, thereby weakening the force of his return blow should
+he have a chance to give it. McGinnis sidestepped and cross-jolted with
+his left. It was a wicked punch, but Peavey Jo partly stopped it. As it
+was, it jarred him to his heels.
+
+"Lam a kid, will ye, ye bloated pea-jammer," grinned McGinnis, who was
+beaming with delight now that the fight was really started.
+
+"You fight, no talk," growled the other, recovering warily, for the one
+interchange had showed him that the Irishman was not to be despised.
+
+"I can sing a tune," said McGinnis, "and then lick you with one hand--"
+He stopped as Peavey Jo bored in, fighting hard and straight and showing
+his mettle. There was no doubt of it, the Frenchman was the stronger and
+the better man. Twice McGinnis tried to dodge and duck, but Peavey Jo,
+for all his size, was lithe when roused and knew every trick of the
+trade, and a sigh went up when with a sweeping blow delivered on the
+point of the shoulder, the Frenchman sent McGinnis reeling to the
+ground. He would have kicked him with his spiked boots as he lay, in the
+fashion of the lumber camps, but the Supervisor, showing not the
+slightest fear of the infuriated giant, quietly stepped between.
+
+"This fight's none of my making or my choosing," he said, "but I'll see
+that it's fought fair."
+
+But before the bullying millman could turn his anger upon the
+self-appointed referee, McGinnis was up on his feet.
+
+"Let me at him," he cried, "I'll show him a trick or two for that."
+
+Again the fight changed color. McGinnis was not smiling, but neither had
+he lost his temper. His vigilance had doubled and his whole frame
+seemed to be of steel springs. Blow after blow came crashing straight
+for him, but the alert Irishman evaded them by the merest fraction of an
+inch. Two fearful swings from Peavey Jo followed each other in rapid
+succession, both of which McGinnis avoided by stepping inside them, his
+right arm apparently swinging idly by his side. Then suddenly, at a
+third swing, he ran in to meet it, stooped and brought up his right with
+all the force of arm and shoulder and with the full spring of the whole
+body upwards. It is a difficult blow to land, but deadly. It caught
+Peavey Jo on the point of the chin and he went down.
+
+One of the mill hands hastened to the boss.
+
+"You've killed him, I think," he said.
+
+"Don't you belave it," said McGinnis; "he was born to be hanged, an'
+hanged he'll be."
+
+But the big lumberman gave no sign of life.
+
+"I have seen a man killed by that uppercut, though," said the Irishman a
+little more dubiously, as the minutes passed by and no sign of
+consciousness was apparent, "but I don't believe I've got the strength
+to do it."
+
+Several moments passed and then Peavey Jo gave a deep respiration.
+
+"There!" said McGinnis triumphantly. "I told ye he'd live to be
+hanged." He looked around for the appreciation of the spectators. "But
+it was a bird of a punch I handed him," he grinned.
+
+
+[Illustration: TRAIN-LOAD FROM ONE TREE.
+
+Temporary railroad built through the forest to the sawmill.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A HARD FOE TO CONQUER
+
+
+With the defeat of Peavey Jo, and the evidence that he was not too
+seriously hurt by the licking he had received, the Supervisor's
+attention promptly returned to the question for which he had come to the
+mill. Ben had struggled up to a sitting posture, and Merritt repeated
+his question as to the whereabouts of the logs, the answering of which
+had brought the big millman's anger upon the half-witted lad.
+Accordingly, Ben looked frightened, and refused to answer, but when he
+saw his foe still lying stretched out on the ground he said:
+
+"Logs, near, near. Under pile of slabs."
+
+"Oh, that was the way he hid them," said the Forest Chief; "clever
+enough trick, too."
+
+McGinnis and Merritt followed Ben, and a couple of the men around
+sauntered along also. Wilbur stayed with the horses, watching the
+mill-hands trying to bring Peavey Jo to consciousness. They had just
+roused him and got him to his feet when the government party returned.
+
+"I've seen your logs," said the Supervisor with just a slight note of
+triumph in his voice, "and I've plenty of witnesses. I also know who
+you're working for, so it will do no good to skip out. I'll nail both of
+you. Four and a half million feet, remember."
+
+Suddenly McGinnis startled every one by a sudden shout:
+
+"Drop that ax!" he cried.
+
+The lumberman, who was just about to get into the saddle, suddenly
+dropped from the stirrup and made a quick grab for Ben, who had been
+standing near by. The half-witted lad had picked up an ax, and was
+quietly sidling up in the direction of the lumberman, who was still too
+dazed from the blow he had received from McGinnis to be on the watch.
+
+"What would ye do with the ax, ye little villain?" asked McGinnis.
+
+"I kill him, once, twice," said the lad.
+
+"Ye would, eh? Sure, I've always labored under the impression that
+killin' a man once is enough. 'Tis myself that can see the satisfaction
+it would be to whack him one with the ax, Ben, but ye'd be robbing the
+hangman."
+
+"I kill him," repeated the half-witted lad.
+
+"Not with that ax, anyway," said McGinnis wrenching it from his grasp
+and tossing it to one of the men who stood by. "I'm thinkin', Merritt,
+that we'd better take the boy away. When he's sot, there's no changin'
+him."
+
+"You fellers had best take one o' my ponies," spoke up one of the
+sawyers; "I've got a string here, an' you can send him back any time.
+An' I guess it wouldn't be healthy here for Ben right now."
+
+"All right, Phil," said McGinnis; "I'll go along with you and get him."
+
+As soon as McGinnis was out of the way, Peavey Jo stepped up to where
+the Supervisor was sitting in the saddle. Ben had been standing beside
+him since McGinnis took the ax, but now he shrank back to Wilbur's side.
+
+"You t'ink me beaten, hey?" he said, showing his teeth in an angry
+snarl; "you wait and see."
+
+"I don't know whether you're beaten or no," said Merritt contemptuously,
+"but any one can see that you've been licked."
+
+"You t'ink this forest good place. By Gar, I make him so bad you
+ashamed to live here."
+
+"A threat's no more use than a lie, Peavey Jo," replied the Supervisor
+sharply. "I don't bluff worth a cent, and the government's behind me."
+
+The half-breed spat on the ground.
+
+"That for your American government," he said. "I, me, make your American
+government look sick. I warn you fairly now. You win this time, yes, but
+always, no. Bon! My turn come by and by."
+
+"All right," replied the head of the forest indifferently, turning away
+as McGinnis and Ben came up, "turn on your viciousness whenever you
+like." Saying which, he rode away without paying further heed to the
+muttered response of the millman.
+
+The ride home was singularly silent. Neither McGinnis nor the
+half-witted lad were in any mood for speaking, Ben nursing a badly
+swollen jaw, and McGinnis weak from the body blows and the lame shoulder
+he had received in the fight. The Supervisor was angry that the trouble
+had come to blows, but in justice could not blame McGinnis for the part
+he had taken. It annoyed him, especially, to feel that he had been
+compelled to take the part of a mere spectator, although this feeling
+was partly soothed by the knowledge that he had discovered and proved
+the very thing he had set out to find.
+
+On arriving at headquarters, the four horses were turned into the
+corral, and the men went in to get supper. Merritt immediately commenced
+a full report to Washington on the case, and McGinnis and Ben were glad
+to lie down. At supper Wilbur took occasion to congratulate McGinnis on
+the result of the encounter. The Irishman nodded.
+
+"He's a better man than me," he admitted readily, "and that uppercut was
+the only thing I had left. But 'tis a darlin' of a punch, is that same,
+when ye get it in right. But I don't think we're through with him. He
+looks like the breed that harbors a grudge."
+
+"He threatened Merritt while you were away," said Wilbur, dropping his
+voice so as not to disturb the rest.
+
+"The mischief he did! The nerve of him! Tell me what he said."
+
+Wilbur repeated the conversation word for word, and the Irishman
+whistled.
+
+"There, now," he said. "What did I tell ye? Not that I can see there's
+much that he can do."
+
+"Do you suppose he'd set a fire?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"He's mean enough to," said McGinnis, "but I don't believe he would. No
+man that knows anything at all about timber would. Sure, he knows that
+we could put it out in no time if there wasn't a wind, and if there was,
+why the blaze might veer at any minute and burn up his mill and all his
+lumber."
+
+"But for revenge?"
+
+"A Frenchy pea-jammer isn't goin' to lose any dollars unless he has to,"
+said McGinnis. "I don't think you need to be afraid of that." Then,
+following along the train of thought that had been suggested, he told
+the boy some lurid stories of life in the lumber camps of Michigan and
+Wisconsin in the early days.
+
+Early next morning Wilbur returned to his camp to resume his round of
+fire rides, which he found to be of growing interest. On his return to
+his camp, although tired, the lad would work till dark over his little
+garden, knowing that everything he succeeded in growing would add to the
+enrichment of his food supply. Then the fence around the garden was in
+very bad repair, and he set to work to make one which should effectively
+keep out the rabbits.
+
+Another week he found that if he could build a little bridge across a
+place where the canyon was very narrow he could save an hour's ride on
+one of his trails. Already the lad had put up a small log span on his
+own account. He went over and over this line of travel, blazing his way
+until he felt entirely sure that he had picked out the best line of
+trail, and then one evening he called up Rifle-Eye and asked him if he
+would come over some time and show him how to build this little bridge.
+
+There followed three most exciting days in which the Ranger and a Guard
+from the other side of the forest joined him in bridge-building. They
+not only spanned the canyon, but strengthened the little log bridge the
+boy had made all by himself. Wilbur's reward was not only the shortening
+of his route, but commendation from Rifle-Eye that he had taken the
+trouble to find out the route and that he had picked it so well. That
+night he wrote home as though he had been appointed in charge of all the
+forests of the world, so proud was he.
+
+Then there was one day in which Wilbur found the value of his lookout,
+for from the very place that the old hunter had pointed out as being one
+of "the windows of his house," the boy saw curling up to the westward a
+small, dull cloud of smoke. Remembering the warnings of the Ranger, he
+did not leap to the saddle at once, but remained for several minutes,
+studying the nearest landmarks to the apparent location of the fire and
+the surest method of getting there. That ride was somewhat of a novel
+experience for Kit as well as the boy. The little mare had grown
+accustomed to a quiet, even pace on the forest trails, and the use of
+the spur was a thing not to be borne. Wilbur felt as if he were fairly
+flying through the pine woods. Still he remembered to keep the mare well
+in hand going down the steeper slopes, and within a couple of hours he
+found himself at the fire. Then Wilbur found how true it was that a
+blaze could easily be put out if caught early. There was little wind,
+and the line of fire was not more than a mile long. By clearing the
+ground, brushing the needles aside for a foot or so on the lee side of
+the fire, most of it burned itself out and the rest he could stamp to
+extinction. Here and there he used his fire shovel and threw a little
+earth where the blaze was highest.
+
+That evening he telephoned to headquarters, reporting that he had put
+the fire out, but only received a kindly worded rebuke for not having
+endeavored to find out what caused the fire, and a suggestion that he
+should ride back the next day and investigate. But before he could
+telephone himself the next evening, and while he was at supper, the
+'phone rang, and he found the Supervisor was on the wire.
+
+"Come to headquarters at once," he was told; "all hands are wanted."
+
+"To-night, Mr. Merritt?" the boy queried.
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"What did you do to-day?" he asked in answer.
+
+"I went to find out what started that fire," the boy replied. "It was a
+couple of fishermen from the city. They had been here before, and so had
+no guide. I followed them up and showed them how to make a fire
+properly."
+
+"That's a pretty long ride," said Merritt; "I guess you can come over
+first thing to-morrow morning."
+
+"Very well, sir," said Wilbur, and hung up the receiver.
+
+"I certainly do wonder," he said aloud, "what it can be? It can't be a
+big fire, or he would tell me to come anyway, no matter what I'd done
+to-day, especially as fire is best fought at night. And I don't see how
+it can be any trouble over Peavey Jo, because that's in the hands of the
+Washington people now. Unless," he added as an afterthought, "they have
+come to arrest him."
+
+Having settled in his mind that this was probably the trouble, Wilbur
+returned to his supper. Just as he was finishing it, he said aloud: "I
+don't see how it can be that, either. For if it's due to any trouble of
+that kind they want big, husky fellows, and Merritt can swear in any one
+he needs." So giving up the problem as temporarily insoluble, Wilbur
+went to bed early so as to make a quick start in the dawn of the
+morning.
+
+It turned out to be a glorious day, with but very little wind, and
+Wilbur's mind was quite set at rest about the question of fire. But when
+he reached headquarters he was surprised to see the number of men that
+were gathered there. Not laughing and joking, as customarily, they stood
+gravely around, only eying him curiously as he came in. The boy turned
+to McGinnis.
+
+"What's wrong?" he said.
+
+For answer the lumberman held out a piece of wood from which the bark
+had been stripped. Underneath the bark on the soft wood were numberless
+little channels which looked as though they had been chiseled out with a
+fine, rounded chisel.
+
+"Oh," he said, "I see." Then he continued: "But I didn't know there was
+any bark-beetle here."
+
+McGinnis waved his hand around.
+
+"Does this look as if we had known very long?" he said.
+
+"Who found it out?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Rifle-Eye," was the reply, "or at least Merritt and he found traces on
+the same day and brought the news into camp. Merritt only saw signs in
+one spot, but the old Ranger dropped on several colonies at different
+parts of the forest, so that it must be widespread."
+
+The boy whistled under his breath. He had heard enough of the ravages of
+the bark beetle to know what it might mean if it once secured a strong
+footing on the Sierras.
+
+"I remember hearing once," he said, "that over twenty-two thousand
+acres of spruce in Bohemia were wiped out in a month by the Tomicus
+beetle."
+
+"This is the work of a Tomicus," said McGinnis. "And what such a
+critter as that was ever made for gets me."
+
+"What's going to be done?" asked Wilbur.
+
+McGinnis pointed to the house whence the Supervisor was just coming out.
+
+"I have notified the District Forester," he said, standing on the steps,
+"and if I find things in bad shape he will send for Wilcox, who knows
+more about the beetle than any man in the Service. I don't know how much
+damage has been done nor how widespread it is. There are eight of us
+here, and we will divide, as I said before, each two keeping about fifty
+yards apart and girdling infected and useless trees. Loyle, you go with
+Rifle-Eye."
+
+Wilbur was delighted at finding himself with his old friend again, and
+he seized the opportunity gladly of asking him how he happened to find
+out that the pest had got a start.
+
+"I was campin' last night," said the old Ranger, "an' I saw an old dead
+tree that looked as if it might have some tinder that would start a
+fire easy. So I picked up my ax an' went up to it. But the minute I got
+there I felt somethin' was wrong, so I sliced along the bark, an' there
+were hundreds of the beetles. Then I looked at some of the near by
+trees, an' there was a few, here and there. But the funny part of it was
+that although I looked, an' looked carefully, for a hundred yards on
+either side, I couldn't find any more."
+
+"So much the better," said Wilbur, "you didn't want to find any more,
+did you?"
+
+The old hunter stepped over to a spruce and examined it closely.
+
+"I didn't think there were any there," he said, "but you can't be too
+sure."
+
+They walked all the rest of the morning, without having seen a sign of
+any beetles, though once the most distant party whooped as a sign that
+some had been found.
+
+"I remember," said the Ranger, "one year when we had a plague o'
+caterpillars. They was eatin' the needles of the trees an' killin' 'em
+by wholesale. There was nothin' we could do to stop it. But it got
+stopped all right."
+
+"How?" Wilbur queried interestedly. "Rain?"
+
+"Rain would only make it worse. Have you ever noticed, son, that when
+somethin' pretty bad comes along, there's always somethin' else comes to
+sort o' take off the smart? Nothin's bad all the time. Well, this time,
+there came a fly."
+
+"A fly?"
+
+"Yes, son, a fly, lookin' somethin' like a wasp, only not as long as
+your thumb-nail. They come in swarms, an' started disposin' o' them
+caterpillars as though they had been trained to the business. They stung
+'em an' then dropped an egg where they'd stung. Sometimes the
+caterpillar lived long enough to spin a web, as they usually do, but it
+never come out as a moth. An' since it's the moth that lays the eggs,
+this fly put an end to the caterpillar output with pleasin' swiftness."
+
+"What did they call the fly?"
+
+"I did hear," said Rifle-Eye, thinking. "Oh, yes, now I remember; it was
+the ik, ik--"
+
+"Oh, I know now," said Wilbur; "I remember hearing about it at the
+Ranger School. The ichneumon fly."
+
+"That's it. But, as I was sayin'--" he stopped short. Then the old
+hunter took a quick step to one side, pointed at a pine tree, and said:
+
+"There's one o' them."
+
+Wilbur could only see a few little holes in the bark, but the old
+woodsman, slicing off a section, showed the tree girdled with the
+galleries that the beetle had made. He raised a whoop, and Wilbur in the
+distance could hear the Supervisor saying, "Three," implying it was the
+third piece found infected.
+
+"But I don't quite see," said Wilbur, "how they make these galleries
+running in all sorts of ways."
+
+"I ain't no expert on this here," said Rifle-Eye. "But as far as I know,
+in the spring a beetle finds an old decayed tree. She begins at once to
+bore a sort of passageway, half in the bark an' half in the wood, an'
+lays eggs all along the sides. When the eggs come out, each grub digs a
+tunnel out from the big gallery, an' in about three weeks the grub has
+made a long tunnel, livin' on the bark an' wood for its food, an' has
+grown to be a beetle. Then it bores its way out an' flies away to
+another tree to repeat the same interestin' performance."
+
+"And if there are a lot of them," said Wilbur, "I suppose it stops the
+sap from going up."
+
+"Exactly," said the hunter. "But they generally begin on sickly trees."
+
+"Wilbur," he called a moment later, "come here."
+
+The boy hurried over to the old hunter, who was standing by a dead
+tree--a small one, lying on the ground.
+
+"Try that one," he said.
+
+The boy struck it with the ax and it showed up alive with beetles and
+grubs and honeycombed with galleries.
+
+"Gee," said the boy, "that's a bad one."
+
+"That's very like the way I found the other," said the old hunter; "one
+very bad one lyin' on the ground an' just a few around it bad, while
+just a short distance away there was no signs."
+
+He stood and thought for a minute or two, but aside from the
+coincidence, Wilbur could not see that there was anything strange in
+that. They worked busily for a few moments, girdling the infected trees,
+and also girdling some small useless trees near by, because, as the
+hunter explained, when the beetles flew out seeking a new tree to
+destroy, they would prefer one that was dying, as a tree from which
+all the bark has been cut away all round always does, and then these
+trees could be burned.
+
+"Have you noticed wheel tracks around here?" asked the hunter
+thoughtfully.
+
+"I did think so," said Wilbur, "near that dead tree, but I s'posed, of
+course, I was wrong. What would a wagon be doing up here?"
+
+Suddenly the Ranger dropped his ax as though he had been stung. He
+turned to the boy, his eyes flashing.
+
+"Boy!" he said, "did you see the stump of that dead tree!"
+
+"I didn't notice," said Wilbur wonderingly.
+
+The old woodsman picked up his ax, and led the way back to the dead
+tree.
+
+Wilbur looked at the base of the tree.
+
+"It isn't a windfall," he said; "it's been cut."
+
+"Where's the stump?" asked Rifle-Eye.
+
+The boy looked within a radius of a few feet, then looked up at the
+hunter.
+
+"Where's the stump?" repeated the old man.
+
+Wilbur turned back and searched for five minutes. Not a stump could he
+find that fitted the tree. None had been cut for some time, and none at
+all of so small a girth.
+
+"I can't find any," he admitted shamefacedly, afraid that the Ranger
+would prove him wrong in some way.
+
+"Nor can I," said Rifle-Eye. "Well?"
+
+"Then I guess there isn't one there," said the boy.
+
+"How did the tree get there?"
+
+Wilbur looked at him, reflecting the question that he saw in the other's
+eyes.
+
+"It couldn't get there of itself," he said, "and it was cut, too."
+
+"An' wheel-tracks?"
+
+"There were tracks," said the boy, "I'm sure of that."
+
+"When a cut tree is found lyin' all by itself," said the Ranger, "with
+wagon tracks leadin' up to it an' away from it, it don't need a city
+detective to find out that some one dropped it there. An' when that dead
+tree is full of bark-beetle, an' there ain't none in the forest, that
+sure looks suspicious. An' when you find two of 'em jest the same way,
+with beetle in both, an' wheel-tracks near both, ye don't have to have a
+dog's nose to scent somethin's doin' that ain't over nice."
+
+"But who," said Wilbur indignantly, "would do a trick like that?"
+
+"The man that drove that wagon," said the old hunter. "I reckon, son,
+you an' me'll do a little trailin' an' see where those wheels lead us."
+
+They left the place where the tree was lying and followed the faint mark
+of the wheels. In a few minutes they crossed the line of the
+Supervisor's inspection and he called to them.
+
+"Hi, Rifle-Eye," he said, "you're away off the line."
+
+"I know," said the old Ranger, "but I've got a plan of my own."
+
+Merritt shrugged his shoulders, but he knew that Rifle-Eye never wasted
+his time, and he said no more. The old hunter and the boy walked on
+nearly a quarter of a mile, and there they found the tracks running
+beside a tiny gully, and a little distance down this, just as it had
+been thrown, was another of these small trees, equally filled with
+beetle.
+
+"I don't think we'll find any stump to this one, either," said Wilbur
+gleefully, for he saw that they were on the right track.
+
+"You will not," replied the other sternly. After they had girdled the
+infected trees again the Ranger shouldered his ax and, abandoning the
+tracks of the wheels, started straight for headquarters.
+
+At supper all sorts of conjectures were expressed as to the cause of the
+pest, its extent, and similar matters, but Rifle-Eye said nothing.
+Wilbur was so full of the news that he was hardly able to eat anything
+for the information he was just bursting to give. But he kept it in.
+Finally, when the men had all finished and pipes were lighted, the old
+Ranger spoke, in his slow, drawling way, and every one stopped to
+listen.
+
+"There's five of ye," he said, "that's found beetle, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes," answered the Supervisor, "five."
+
+"And I venture to bet," he continued, "that you found a dead tree lyin'
+in the middle of the infected patch!"
+
+"Yes," said several voices, "we did."
+
+"An' you didn't find much beetle except just round that one tree?"
+
+"Not a bit," said one or two. "What about it?"
+
+"There's a kind o' disease called Cholera," began Rifle-Eye in a
+conversational tone, "that drifts around a city in a queer sort o' way.
+It never hits two places at the same time, but if it goes up a street,
+it sort o' picks one side, an' stops at one place for a while then goes
+travelin' on. It acts jest as if a man was walkin' around, an' he was
+the cholera spirit himself."
+
+"Well?" queried the Supervisor sharply.
+
+The old Ranger smiled tolerantly at his impatience.
+
+"Wa'al," he said, "I ain't believin' or disbelievin' the yarn. But I
+ain't believin' any such perambulatin' spirit for a bark-beetle.
+Especially when I finds wagon tracks leading to each place where the
+trouble is."
+
+"What do you mean, Rifle-Eye?" asked Merritt. "Give it to us straight."
+
+"I mean," he said, "that I ain't never heard of spirits needin' wagons
+to get around in. An' when I find dead trees containin' bark-beetles
+planted promiscuous where they'll do most good, I'm aimin' to draw a
+bead on the owner o' that wagon. An' I'll ask another thing. Did any o'
+you find the stumps of them infected trees?"
+
+There was a long pause, and then McGinnis, always the first to see,
+laughed out loud ruefully.
+
+"'Tis a black sorrow to me," he said, "that I didn't let Ben welt him
+wid the ax the other day. Somebody else will have to do it now."
+
+"You mean," said the Supervisor, flaming, "that those trees were
+deliberately brought here to infect the forest, trees full of beetles?"
+
+"Sure, 'tis as plain as the nose on your face," said McGinnis. "An' it's
+dubs we were not to see it ourselves."
+
+"And it was--?"
+
+"The bucko pea-jammer that I gave a lickin' to in the spring, for sure,"
+said McGinnis. "Peavey Jo, of course, who else?"
+
+
+[Illustration: WILBUR'S OWN BRIDGE.
+
+Light structure made by the boy over stream just below his camp.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE THE SUPERVISOR STAYED.
+
+The Ranger's cabin where the men gathered to fight the invasion of the
+bark beetle.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A FOURTH OF JULY PERIL
+
+
+Wilbur stayed but a few days at headquarters, the Supervisor and
+Rifle-Eye having succeeded in trailing the wagon that had deposited the
+trees from the point of its entrance into the forest to the place it
+went out, by this means ensuring the discovery of all the spots where
+diseased trees had been placed. One of them was in Wilbur's section of
+the forest, and he was required to go weekly and examine all the trees
+in the vicinity of the infected spot to make sure that the danger was
+over. But, thanks to Rifle-Eye's discovery, the threatened pest was
+speedily held down to narrow limits.
+
+This added not a little to the lad's riding, for the place where Peavey
+Jo had deposited the infected tree in his particular part of the forest
+was a long way from the trail to the several lookout points to which he
+went daily to watch for fires. Fortunately, having built the little
+bridge across the canyon, and thus on one of the days of the week
+having shortened his ride, he was able to use the rest of the day
+looking after bark-beetles. But it made a very full week. He could not
+neglect any part of these rides, for June was drawing to an end and
+there had been no rain for weeks.
+
+One night, returning from a hard day, on which he had not only ridden
+his fire patrol, but had also spent a couple of hours rolling big rocks
+into a creek to keep it from washing out a trail should a freshet come,
+he found a large party of people at his camp. There was an ex-professor
+of social science of the old regime, his wife and little daughter, a
+guide, and a lavish outfit. Although the gate of Wilbur's corral was
+padlocked and had "Property of the U. S. Forest Service" painted on it,
+the professor had ordered the guide to smash the gate and let the
+animals in.
+
+Wilbur was angry, and took no pains to conceal it.
+
+"Who turned those horses into my corral?" he demanded.
+
+The professor, who wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses above a very dirty and
+tired face, replied:
+
+"I am in charge of this party, and it was done at my orders."
+
+"By what right do you steal my pasture?" asked the boy hotly.
+
+"I understood," said the professor loftily, "that it was the custom of
+the West to be hospitable. But you are probably too young to know. Your
+parents live here?"
+
+"No," replied the lad. "I am a Forest Guard, and in charge of this
+station. You will have to camp elsewhere."
+
+At these last words the flap of the tent was parted and a woman came
+out, the professor's wife, in fact. She looked very tired and much
+troubled.
+
+"What is this?" she asked querulously. "Have we got to start again
+to-night?"
+
+Wilbur took off his hat.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "I did not know there were ladies in the
+party." He turned to the professor. "I suppose if it will bother them
+I'll have to let you stay. But if it hadn't been for that I'd have
+turned every beast you've got out into the forest and let them rustle
+for themselves."
+
+"Yes, you would!" said the guide. "An' what would I have had to say?"
+
+"Nothing," said Wilbur, "except that I'd have you arrested for touching
+U. S. property." He turned to the professor: "How did you get here?" he
+said.
+
+"Up that road," said the older man, pointing to the southwest.
+
+"And why didn't you camp a couple of miles down? There's much better
+ground down there."
+
+"The guide said there was no place at all, and he didn't know anything
+about this camp, either, and we thought we would have to go on all
+night."
+
+Wilbur snorted.
+
+"Guide!" he said contemptuously. "Acts more like a stable hand!"
+
+"Well," said the professor testily, "if there's been any damage done you
+can tell your superiors to send me a bill and I'll take the matter up in
+Washington. In the meantime, we will stay here, and if I like it here, I
+will stay a week or two."
+
+"Not much, you won't," said Wilbur, "at least you won't have any horses
+in the corral after daybreak to-morrow morning. I'll let them have one
+good feed, anyhow, and if they're traveling with a thing like that to
+look after them,"--he pointed to the "guide,"--"they'll need a rest. But
+out they go to-morrow."
+
+"We will see to-morrow," said the camper.
+
+"In the meantime, I see a string of trout hanging there. Are they
+fresh?"
+
+"I caught them early this morning," answered Wilbur, "before I began my
+day's work."
+
+The professor took out a roll of bills.
+
+"How much do you want for them!" he asked.
+
+"They are not for sale," the boy replied.
+
+"Oh, but I must have them," the other persisted. "I had quite made up my
+mind to have those for supper to-night."
+
+"And I suppose, if I hadn't come home when I did," said Wilbur, "you
+would have stolen those, too!"
+
+"I would have recompensed you adequately," the former college official
+replied. "And you have no right to use the word 'stolen.' I shall report
+you for impertinence."
+
+By this time Wilbur was almost too angry to talk, and, thinking it
+better not to say too much, he turned on his heel and went to his own
+tent. Before going down to the corral with Kit, however, he took the
+precaution of carrying the string of fish with him, for he realized that
+although the professor would not for the world have taken them without
+paying, he would not hesitate to appropriate them in his absence. He
+cooked his trout with a distinct delight in the thought that the
+intruders had nothing except canned goods.
+
+In the morning Wilbur was up and had breakfast over before the other
+camp was stirring. As soon as the "guide" appeared Wilbur walked over to
+him.
+
+"I've given you a chance to look after your animals," he said, "before
+turning them out. You take them out in ten minutes or I'll turn them
+loose."
+
+"Aw, go on," said the other, "I've got to rustle grub. You haven't got
+the nerve to monkey with our horses."
+
+Promptly at the end of the ten minutes Wilbur went over to the "guide"
+again.
+
+"Out they go," he said.
+
+But the other paid no attention. Wilbur went down to the corral, the
+gate of which he had fixed early that morning, caught his own two
+mounts, and tied them. Then he opened the gate of the corral and drove
+the other eight horses to the gate. In a moment he heard a wild shout
+and saw the "guide" coming down the trail in hot haste. He reached the
+corral in time to head off the first of his horses which was just coming
+through. Wilbur had no special desire to cause the animals to stray,
+and was only too well satisfied to help the "guide" catch them and tie
+them up to trees about the camp. By this time it was long after the hour
+that the boy usually began his patrol, but he waited to see the party
+start. As they were packing he noticed a lot of sticks that looked like
+rockets.
+
+"What are those?" he asked. "If they're heavy, you're putting that pack
+on all wrong."
+
+"These ain't got no weight," said the "guide"; "that's just some
+fireworks for the Fourth. We've got a bunch of them along for the little
+girl. She's crazy about fireworks."
+
+Wilbur said no more, but waited until the professor came out. Then he
+walked up to him.
+
+"I understand," he said, "that you have some fireworks for the Fourth."
+
+The man addressed made no reply, but walked along as though he had not
+heard.
+
+"I give you fair warning," said Wilbur, "that you can't set those off in
+this forest, Independence Day or no Independence Day."
+
+"We shan't ask your permission," said the old pedant loftily. "In fact,
+some will be set off this evening, and some to-morrow, wherever we may
+be."
+
+"But don't you understand," the boy said, "that you're putting the
+forest in danger, in awful danger of fire? And if a big forest fire
+starts, you are just as likely to suffer as any one else. You might
+cause a loss of millions of dollars for the sake of a few rockets."
+
+"The man that sold me them," said the other, "said they were harmless,
+and he ought to know."
+
+"All right," said Wilbur. "I've been told off to protect this forest
+from danger of fire, and if there's any greater danger around than a
+bunch like yours I haven't seen it. I reckon I'll camp on your trail
+till you're out of my end of the forest, and then I'll pass the word
+along and see that there's some one with you to keep you from making
+fools of yourselves."
+
+He turned on his heel and commenced to make up a pack for his heavier
+horse, intending to ride Kit. He then went to the telephone and, finding
+no one at headquarters, called up the old hunter's cabin. The Ranger had
+a 'phone put in for Ben, who had learned how to use it, and by good
+fortune the half-witted lad knew where to find Rifle-Eye. He explained
+to Ben how matters stood, and asked him to get word to the Ranger if
+possible. Then Wilbur went back to the party and gave them a hand to
+get started.
+
+Although he had been made very angry, Wilbur could see no gain in
+sulking and he spent the day trying to establish a friendly relation
+with the professor, so that, as he expressed it afterwards, "he could
+jolly him out of the fireworks idea." But while this scholastic visitor
+was willing to talk about subjects in connection with the government,
+and was quite well-informed on reclamation projects, Wilbur found the
+professor as stubborn as a mule, and every time he tried to bring the
+conversation round to forest fires he would be snubbed promptly.
+
+That evening Wilbur led the party to a camping place where, he reasoned,
+there would be little likelihood of fire trouble, as it was a very open
+stand and all the brush on it had been piled and burned in the spring.
+But the lad was at his wits' end what further to do. He could not seize
+and carry off all the fireworks, and even if he were able to do so, he
+couldn't see that he had any right to. It was a great relief to the boy
+when he heard a horse on the trail and the old Ranger cantered up.
+
+"Oh, Rifle-Eye," he said, "I'm so glad you've come. Tell me what to
+do," and the boy recounted his difficulty with the party from first to
+last.
+
+The old woodsman listened attentively, and then said:
+
+"I reckon, son, we'll stroll over and sorter see just how the land lies.
+There's a lot of things can be done with a mule by talkin' to him,
+although there is some that ain't wholly convinced by a stick of
+dynamite. We'll see which-all these here are."
+
+"I think they're the dynamite kind," the boy replied.
+
+"Well, we'll see," the Ranger repeated. He stepped in his loose-jointed
+way to where the party was sitting around the campfire. Then, looking
+straight at the man of the party, he said:
+
+"You're a professor?"
+
+The remark admitted of no reply but:
+
+"I was for twenty years."
+
+"And what did you profess?"
+
+At this the camper rose to his feet, finding it uncomfortable to sit and
+look up at the tall, gaunt mountaineer. He replied testily that it
+wasn't anything to do with Rifle-Eye what chair he had held or in what
+college, and he'd trouble him to go about his business.
+
+Rifle-Eye heard him patiently to the end, and then asked again, without
+any change of voice:
+
+"And what did you profess?"
+
+Once again the reputed educator expressed himself as to the Ranger's
+interference and declared that he had been more annoyed since coming
+into the forest than if he had stayed out of it. He worked himself up
+into a towering rage. Presently Rifle-Eye replied quietly:
+
+"You refuse to tell?"
+
+"I do," snapped the professor.
+
+"Is it because you are ashamed of what you taught, or of where you
+taught it?" the Ranger asked.
+
+This was touching the stranger in a tender place. He was proud of his
+college and of his hobby, and he retorted immediately:
+
+"Ashamed? Certainly not. I was Professor of Social Economy in Blurtville
+University."
+
+"And what do you call Social Economy?" asked Rifle-Eye.
+
+The educator fell into the trap thus laid out for him and launched into
+a vigorous description of his own peculiar personal views toward
+securing a better understanding of the rights of the poor and of modern
+plans for ensuring better conditions of life, until he painted a picture
+of his science and his own aims which was most admirable. When he drew
+breath, he seemed quite pleased with himself.
+
+The Ranger thought a minute.
+
+"An' under which of these departments," he said, "would you put breakin'
+into this young fellow's corral, and havin' your eight horses eatin' up
+feed which will hardly be enough for his two when the dry weather
+comes?"
+
+"That's another matter entirely," replied the professor, becoming angry
+as soon as he was criticised.
+
+"Yes, it's another matter," said Rifle-Eye. "It's doin' instead of
+talkin'. I reckon you're one o' the talkin' kind, so deafened by the
+sound o' your own splutterin' that you can't hear any one else. It's a
+pity, too, that you don't learn somethin' yourself before you set others
+to learnin'."
+
+"Are you trying to teach me?" snapped the traveler.
+
+The old Ranger leaned his arm on the barrel of his rifle, which,
+according to his invariable custom, he was carrying with him, a habit
+from old hunting days, and looking straight at the professor, said:
+
+"I ain't no great shakes on Social Economy, as you call it, and I ain't
+been to college. But I c'n see right enough that there's no real meanin'
+to you in all you know about the rich an' the poor when you'll go an'
+rob a lad o' the pasture he'll need for his horses; an' you're only
+actin' hypocrite in lecturin' about promotin' good feelin's in society
+when you're busy provokin' bad feelin' yourself. An' when you're harpin'
+on the deep canyon that lies between Knowledge an' Ignorance, it don't
+pay to forget that Politeness is a mighty easy bridge to rear, an' one
+that's always safe. You may profess well enough, Mister Professor, but
+you're a pretty ornery example o' practisin'."
+
+"But it's none of your business--" interrupted the stranger angrily.
+
+Rifle-Eye with a gesture stopped him.
+
+"It's just as much my business to talk to you," he said, "as it'd be
+yours to talk to me. In fact it's more. You c'n talk in your lecture
+room, an' I'll talk here. Perhaps it ain't altogether your fault; it's
+just that you don't know any better. You're just a plumb ignorant
+critter out here, Mister Professor, an' by rights you oughtn't to be
+around loose.
+
+"An' you tried to threaten a boy here who was doin' his duty by sayin'
+that you'd write to Washington. What for? Are you so proud o' thievin'
+an' bullyin' that you want every one to know, or do you want to tell
+only a part o' the story so as you'll look all right an' the other
+fellow all wrong. That breed o' Social Economy don't go, not out here.
+We calls it lyin', an' pretty mean lyin' at that."
+
+He broke off suddenly and looked down with a smile.
+
+"Well, Pussy," he said, "that's right. You come an' back me up," and
+reaching out his brown gnarled hand he drew to his side the little girl
+who had come trustingly forward to him as all children did, and now had
+slipped her little hand into his.
+
+"An' then there's this question o' fire," he continued. "Haven't you got
+some fireworks for the Fourth, Pussy?" he said, looking down at his
+little companion.
+
+"Oh, yeth," she lisped, "pin-wheelth, and crackerth, and thnaketh, and
+heapth of thingth."
+
+"What a time we'll have," he said. "Shall we look at them now?"
+
+"Oh, yeth," the little girl replied, and ran across to her father, "can
+we thee them now?"
+
+"No, not now," the father replied.
+
+The old Ranger called the "guide" by name.
+
+"Miguel," he said, "the fireworks are wanted to-night. Bring 'em to me."
+
+The professor protested, but a glance at the sinewy frame of the
+mountaineer decided Miguel, and he brought several packages. In order to
+please the little girl, Rifle-Eye lent her his huge pocket-knife and let
+her open the packages, sharing the surprises with her. Some of them he
+put aside, especially the rockets, but by far the larger number he let
+the child make up into a pile.
+
+"Will you give me your word you won't set off these?" queried the
+mountaineer, pointing to the smaller pile of dangerous explosives with
+his foot.
+
+"I'll say nothing," said the professor.
+
+Without another word the Ranger stooped down, picked them up in one big
+armful, and disappeared beyond the circle of the light of the campfire
+into the darkness. He reappeared in a few minutes.
+
+"I'm afeard," he said, "your fireworks may be a little wet. I tied 'em
+in a bundle, fastened a stone to 'em, an' then dropped 'em in that
+little lake. You can't do any harm with those you've got now." He waited
+a moment. "You can get those rockets," he said, "any time you have a
+mind to. That lake dries up about the middle of September."
+
+"By what right--" began the professor.
+
+"I plumb forget what sub-section you called that partickler right just
+now," Rifle-Eye replied, "but out here we calls it fool-hobblin'. You're
+off your range, Mister Professor, an' the change o' feed has got you
+locoed mighty bad. I reckon you'd better trot back to your own pastures
+in the East, an' stay there till you know a little more."
+
+"What is your name and address?" blustered the professor; "I'll have the
+law invoked for this."
+
+"There's few in the Rockies as don't know old Rifle-Eye Bill," the
+Ranger replied, "an' my address is wherever I c'n find some good to be
+done. Any one c'n find me when I'm wanted, an' I'm ready any time you
+say. Now, you're goin' to celebrate the Fourth to-morrow, to show how
+fond you are o' good government. You c'n add to your lectures on Social
+Economy one rule you don't know any thin' about. It's a Western rule,
+this one, an' it's just that no man that can't govern himself can govern
+anythin' else."
+
+He turned on his heel, ignoring the reply shouted after him, and
+followed by Wilbur, mounted and rode away up the trail.
+
+"I've got to get right back," said the Ranger; "we're goin' to start
+workin' out a special sale of poles."
+
+"Telegraph poles?" queried Wilbur.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When you come to think of it," said the boy, "there must be quite a lot
+of poles all over the country."
+
+"Merritt said he reckoned there was about sixteen million poles now in
+use, an' three and a half million poles are needed every year just for
+telegraph and telephone purposes alone."
+
+"When you think," said Wilbur, "that every telegraph and telephone pole
+means a whole tree, there's some forest been cut down, hasn't there?"
+
+"How many poles do you s'pose are used in a mile?"
+
+"About forty, I heard at school," the boy replied, "and it takes an
+army of men working all the year round just puttin' in poles."
+
+The old hunter struck a match and put a light to his pipe.
+
+"More forest destruction," said the boy mischievously, "I should think,
+Rifle-Eye, you'd be ashamed to waste wood by burning it up in the form
+of matches."
+
+"Go on talkin'," said Rifle-Eye, "you like tellin' me these things you
+picked up at the Ranger School. Can you tell how much timber is used, or
+how many matches are lighted an' thrown away?"
+
+"Three million matches a minute, every minute of the twenty-four hours,"
+said Wilbur immediately. "That is," he added after a moment's
+calculation, "nearly four and a half billion a day. And then only the
+very best portion of the finest wood can be used, and, as I hear, the
+big match factories turn out huge quantities of other stuff, like doors
+and window sashes, in order to use up the wood which is not of the very
+finest quality, such as is needed for matches."
+
+"How do they saw 'em so thin, I wonder?" interposed the Ranger.
+
+"Some of it is sawed both ways," the boy replied. "Some logs are boiled
+and then revolved on a lathe which makes a continuous shaving the
+thickness of a match, and a lot of matches are paper-pulp, which is
+really wood after all. There's no saying, Rifle-Eye," he continued,
+laughing, "how many good trees have been cut down to make a light for
+your pipe."
+
+The old hunter puffed hard, as the pipe was not well lighted.
+
+"Well," he said, "I guess I'll let the Forest Guards handle it." He
+looked across at the boy. "It's up to you," he said, "to keep me goin.'
+Got a match?"
+
+
+[Illustration: MEASURING A FAIR-SIZED TREE.
+
+Lumberman on the scene of felling operations checking up a timber sale.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: RUNNING A TELEPHONE LINK.]
+
+
+[Illustration: RUNNING A TELEPHONE LINK.
+
+Using the poles planted by Nature for annihilating space in sparsely
+settled regions.
+
+_Photographs by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+AMIDST A CATTLE STAMPEDE
+
+
+Wilbur would have liked greatly to be able to stay at his little tent
+home and celebrate the Fourth of July in some quiet fashion, but the
+fireworks folly of the professor's party had got on his nerve a little,
+and he was not satisfied until he really got into the saddle and was on
+his way to a lookout point. Nor was he entirely without reward, for
+shortly before noon, as he rode along his accustomed trail, a
+half-Indian miner met him and told him he had been waiting to ask him to
+dinner. And there, with all the ceremony the little shack could muster,
+this simple family had prepared a feast to the only representative of
+the United States that lived near them, and Wilbur, boy-like, had to
+make a speech, and rode along the trail later in the afternoon, feeling
+that he had indeed had a glorious Fourth of July dinner in the Indian's
+cabin.
+
+The week following the Supervisor rode up, much to Wilbur's surprise,
+who had not expected to see him back in that part of the forest so
+soon. But Merritt, who indeed was anxious to get away, by his
+conversation showed that he was awaiting the arrival and conveyance of a
+trainload of machinery for the establishment of a large pulp-mill on the
+Kern River. The trail over which this machinery would have to be taken
+was brushed out and ready, all save about nine miles of it, a section
+too small to make it worth while to call a Ranger from another part of
+the forest. So the Supervisor announced his intention of doing the work
+himself, together with Wilbur. The night preceding, just before they
+turned in for the night, the boy turned to his chief and said:
+
+"What time in the morning, Mr. Merritt?"
+
+"I'll call you," replied the Supervisor.
+
+He did, too, for at sharp five o'clock the next morning Wilbur was
+wakened to find the older man up and with breakfast ready.
+
+"I ought to have got breakfast, sir," said the boy; "why didn't you
+leave it for me?"
+
+"You need more sleep than I do," was the sufficient answer. "Now, tuck
+in."
+
+The boy waited for no second invitation and devoted his attention to
+securing as much grub as he could in the shortest possible time.
+Breakfast was over, the camp straightened up, and they were in the
+saddle by a quarter to six. It was ten miles from Wilbur's camp to the
+point where the trail should start. The country was very rough, and it
+was drawing on for nine o'clock when they reached the point desired.
+
+"Now," said the Supervisor, "take the brush hook and clear the trail as
+I locate it."
+
+Wilbur, accordingly, following immediately after his chief, worked for
+all he knew how, cutting down the brushwood and preparing the trail.
+Every once in a while Merritt, who had blazed the trail some distance
+ahead, would return, and, bidding the boy pile brush, would attack the
+underwood as though it were a personal enemy of his and would cover the
+ground in a way that would make Wilbur's most strenuous moments seem
+trifling in comparison. Once he returned and saw the lad laboring for
+dear life, breathing hard, and showing by his very pose that he was
+tiring rapidly, although it was not yet noon, and he called to him.
+
+"Loyle," he said, "what are you breaking your neck at it that way for?"
+
+"I don't come near doing as much as I ought unless I do hurry," he
+said. "And then I'm a long way behind."
+
+"You mean as much as me?"
+
+The boy nodded.
+
+"Absurd. No two men's speed is the same. Don't force work. Find out what
+gait you can keep up all day and do that. Make your own standard, don't
+take another man's."
+
+"But I go so slowly!"
+
+"Want to know it all and do it all the first summer, don't you? Suppose
+no one else had to learn? I don't work as hard as you do, though I get
+more done. You can't buck up against an old axman. I haven't done this
+for some time, but I guess I haven't forgotten how. Go and sit down and
+get your breath."
+
+"But I'm not tired--" began Wilbur protestingly.
+
+"Sit down," he was ordered, and the boy, feeling it was better to do
+what he was told, did so. After he had a rest, which indeed was very
+welcome, the Supervisor called him.
+
+"Loyle," he said, "you know something about a horse, for I've watched
+you with them. Handle yourself the same way. You wouldn't force a horse;
+don't force yourself."
+
+Moreover, the older man showed the boy many ways wherein to save labor,
+explaining that there was a right way and a wrong way of attacking every
+different kind of bush. In consequence, when Wilbur started again in the
+afternoon he found himself able to do almost half as much again with
+less labor. Working steadily all day until sundown, five miles of the
+trail had been located, brushed out, and marked.
+
+There was a small lake near by, and thinking that it would be less
+fatiguing for the boy to catch fish than to look after the camp, the
+Supervisor sent him off to try his luck. Wilbur, delighted to have been
+lucky, returned in less than fifteen minutes with four middling-sized
+trout, and he found himself hungry enough to eat his two, almost bones
+and all. That night they slept under a small Baker tent that Merritt had
+brought along on his pack horse, the riding and pack saddles being piled
+beside the tent and covered with a slicker.
+
+The following day, by starting work a little after daybreak, the
+remaining four miles of the trail were finished before the noonday halt,
+which was made late in order to allow the completion of the work.
+Wilbur, when he reviewed the fact that they had gone foot by foot over
+nine miles of trail, clearing out the brush and piling it, so that it
+could be burned and rendered harmless as soon as it was dry, thought it
+represented as big a two days' work as he had ever covered.
+
+"Will the pulp-mill be above or below the new Edison plant?" queried
+Wilbur on their way home.
+
+"Above," said his companion. "I'll show you just where. You're going to
+ride down with me to the site of the mill to-morrow. There's a lot of
+spruce here, and it ought to pay."
+
+"But I thought," said Wilbur, "that paper-pulp was such a destructive
+way of using timber?"
+
+"It is," answered Merritt, "but paper is a necessity. A book is more
+important than a board."
+
+"But doesn't it take a lot of wood to make a little paper?" asked the
+boy. "There's been such a howl about paper-pulp that I thought it must
+be fearfully wasteful."
+
+"It isn't wasteful at all," was the reply. "A cord and a half of spruce
+will make a ton of pulp. Where the outcry comes in is the quantity used.
+One newspaper uses a hundred and fifty tons of paper a day. That means
+two hundred and twenty-five cords of wood. The stand of spruce here is
+about ten cords to the acre. So one newspaper would clean off ten acres
+a day or three thousand acres a year."
+
+"But wouldn't it ruin the forest to take it off at that rate?"
+
+"Certainly," the Supervisor answered, "but the sale will be so arranged
+that not more will be sold each year than will be good for the forest."
+
+"Is all paper made of spruce?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"No. Many kinds of wood will make paper. Carolina poplar and tulip wood
+are both satisfactory."
+
+"Except for the branches and knot-wood," said Wilbur, "almost every part
+of every kind of tree is good for something."
+
+"And you can use those, too," came the instant reply. "That's what dry
+distillation is for. All that you've got to do is fill a retort with
+wood and put a furnace under it, and all pine tree leavings can be
+transformed into tar and acetic acid, from which they can make vinegar,
+as well as wood alcohol and charcoal."
+
+Finding that the boy was thoroughly interested in the possibilities of
+lumber, the Supervisor, usually so silent and brief in manner, opened
+out a little and talked for two straight hours to Wilbur on the
+possibilities of forestry. He showed the value of turpentine and resin
+in the pine trees and advocated the planting of hemlock trees and oak
+trees for their bark, as used in the tanning industry.
+
+As the Forester warmed up to his subject, Wilbur thought he was
+listening to an "Arabian Nights" fairy tale. Despite his customary
+silence Merritt was an enthusiast, and believed that forestry was the
+"chief end of man." He assured the boy that twenty different species of
+tree of immense value could be acclimatized in North America which are
+of great commercial value now in South America; he compared the climate
+in the valleys of the lower Mississippi with those of the Ganges, and
+named tree after tree, most of them entirely unknown to Wilbur, which
+would be of high value in the warm, swampy bottoms. And when Wilbur
+ventured to express doubt, he was confronted with the example of the
+eucalyptus, commonly called gum tree, once a native of Australia, now
+becoming an important American tree.
+
+All the way home and all through supper the Supervisor talked, until
+when it finally became time to turn in, the boy dreamed of an ideal time
+when every acre of land in the United States should be rightly occupied;
+the arid land irrigated from streams fed by reservoirs in the forested
+mountains; the rivers full of navigation and never suffering floods; the
+farms possessing their wood-lots all duly tended; and every inch of the
+hills and mountains clothed with forests--pure stands, or mixed stands,
+as might best suit the conditions--each forest being the best possible
+for its climate and its altitude.
+
+But he had to get up at five o'clock next morning, just the same, and
+dreams became grim realities when he found himself in the saddle again
+and off for a day's work before six. A heavy thunderstorm in the night
+had made everything fresh and shining, but at the same time the water on
+the underbrush soaked Wilbur through and through when he went out to
+wrangle the horses. Merritt's riding horse, a fine bay with a blazed
+face, had a bad reputation in the country, which Wilbur had heard, and
+he was in an ugly frame of mind when the boy found him. But Wilbur was
+not afraid of horses, and he soon got him saddled.
+
+"I think Baldy's a little restless this morning, sir," ventured Wilbur,
+as they went to the corral to get their horses. But he received no
+answer. The Supervisor's fluent streak had worn itself out the day
+before and he was more silent than ever this morning.
+
+Merritt swung himself into his saddle, and, as Wilbur expected, the bay
+began to buck. It was then, more than ever, that the boy realized the
+difference between the riding he had seen on the plains and ordinary
+riding. Merritt was a good rider, and he stuck to his saddle well. But
+Wilbur could see that it was with difficulty, and that the task was a
+hard one. There was none of the easy grace with which Bob-Cat Bob had
+ridden, and when Baldy did settle down Wilbur felt that his rider had
+considered his keeping his seat quite a feat, not regarding it as a
+trifling and unimportant incident in the day.
+
+Merritt and the boy rode on entirely off the part of the forest on which
+Wilbur had his patrol, to a section he did not know. They stopped once
+to look over a young pine plantation. Just over a high ridge there was a
+wider valley traversed by an old road which crossed the main range about
+five miles west and went down into a valley where there were numerous
+ranches. The principal occupation of these ranchmen was stock-raising,
+on account of their long distance from a railroad which prevented them
+marketing any produce. Just about July of each year these ranchmen
+rounded up their stock, cut out the beef steers, and shipped them to the
+markets. It was then the last week in July, and the Supervisor expected
+to meet some of the herds upon the old road which crossed the mountains
+further on. Just as they reached the bottom of the hill they saw the
+leaders of a big herd coming down the road from the pass. In the
+distance a couple of cowpunchers could be seen in front holding up the
+lead of the bunch.
+
+"I'll wait and talk," said Merritt, reining in. As perhaps he had
+exchanged four whole sentences in two hours' ride, Wilbur thought to
+himself that the conversation would have to be rather one-sided, but he
+knew the other believed in seizing every opportunity to promote
+friendliness with the people in his forest and waited their upcoming
+with interest. The Supervisor had his pack-horse with him, and as the
+herd drew nearer he told Wilbur to take him out of sight into the brush,
+so as not to scare the steers, and tie him up safely. That done,
+Wilbur rode back to the road.
+
+By the time he had returned the two punchers had ridden up. One proved
+to be the foreman of the outfit, by name Billy Grier, and the other a
+Texan, whom Merritt called Tubby Rodgers, apparently because he was as
+thin as a lath.
+
+"I was a-hopin'," said Grier as he rode up, "that you-all was headin'
+down the road a bit."
+
+"I wasn't planning to," said the Forester. "Why?"
+
+"We had a heavy storm down in the valley last night, which sort of broke
+things up badly, an' I had to leave a couple of men behind."
+
+"Don't want to hire us to drive, do you?" asked Merritt.
+
+"Allers willin' to pay a good man," said the foreman with a grin. "Give
+ye forty and chuck."
+
+The Supervisor smiled.
+
+"I'm supposed to be holding down a soft job," he said; "government
+service."
+
+"Soft job," snorted Grier, "they'd have to give me the bloomin' forest
+afore I'd go at it the way you do. But, Merritt," he added, "this is
+how. A piece down the road, say a mile an' a half, I'm told there's a
+rotten bit o' road, an' I'm a little leery of trouble there. I'd have
+strung out the cattle three times as far if I'd known of it. But I had
+no chance; I've only just heard that some old county board is tryin' to
+fix a bridge, an' they're movin' about as rapid as a spavined mule with
+three broken legs."
+
+"Well?" queried Merritt; "I suppose you want us to help you over that
+spot."
+
+"That's it, pard," said the foreman; "an' I'll do as much for you some
+time."
+
+"I wish you could, but I'll never have a string of cattle like those to
+turn into good hard coin."
+
+"Well," said the cowpuncher, "why not?"
+
+"Nothing doing," replied Merritt; "the Forest Service is an incurable
+disease that nobody ever wants to be cured of."
+
+By this time the head of the bunch of steers was drawing close and the
+foreman repeated his request.
+
+"All right," answered the Forester, who thought it good policy to have
+the ranchman feel that he was under obligations to the Service, "we'll
+give you a hand all right."
+
+After riding down the road for about a mile it became precipitous, and
+Wilbur could readily see where there was likely to be trouble. Shortly
+before they reached the place where the bridge was being repaired the
+bank on the right-hand side of the road gave place to a sheer drop forty
+to fifty feet high and deepening with every step forward. As the bunch
+neared the bridge Merritt and Wilbur, with the cowpunchers, slowed up
+until the steers were quite close. Then Grier and Rodgers went ahead
+over the bridge, while Merritt waited until about fifty cattle had
+passed and then swung in among them, telling Wilbur to do the same when
+about another fifty head had passed.
+
+At first Wilbur could not see the purpose of this, and he had great
+difficulty in forcing his horse among the cattle. But they pressed back
+as he swung into the road, giving him a little space to ride in, and
+thus dividing the head of the drove into two groups of fifty. Following
+instructions, Wilbur gradually pressed the pace of the bunch in order to
+prevent any chance of overcrowding from the rear.
+
+It seemed easy enough. Owing to the narrowness of the road and the
+precipitous slope it was impossible for the steers to scatter, and as
+long as the pace was kept up, there was likely to be no difficulty. But
+Kit--Wilbur was riding Kit--suddenly pricked her ears and began to
+dance a little in her steps. The steers, although their pace had not
+changed, were snuffling in an uncertain fashion, and Wilbur vaguely
+became conscious that fear was abroad. He quieted Kit, but could see
+from every motion that she was catching the infection of the fear. He
+tightened his hold on the lines, for he saw that if she tried to bolt
+both of them would go over the edge. Wilbur looked down.
+
+A hundred yards or so further on the road widened slightly, and Wilbur
+wondered whether it would be possible for him to work his way to the
+right of the steers and gallop full speed alongside the herd to get in
+front of them; but even as he thought of the plan he realized that it
+would scarcely be possible, and that unless he reached the front of the
+herd before the road narrowed again he would be forced over the edge.
+And, as he reached the wider place, he saw Grier and Rodgers standing.
+They also had sensed the notion of fear and were waiting to see what
+could be done in the main body of the herd. Merritt had worked his way
+through the steers, and was riding in the lead. Wilbur wondered how he
+had ever been able to force Baldy through. This put Wilbur behind a
+bunch of about one hundred steers and in front of five or six hundred
+more.
+
+Below him, to the right, was a valley, the drop now being about one
+hundred and fifty feet, and Wilbur could see at the edge of the creek,
+pitched among some willows, a little tent, the white contrasting
+strongly with the green of the willows. The road wound round high above
+the valley in order to keep the grade. Twice Wilbur halted Kit to try to
+stop the foremost of the herd behind him from pressing on too close, but
+the third time Kit would not halt. She was stepping as though on
+springs, with every muscle and sinew tense, and the distance between the
+steers before and the steers behind was gradually lessening.
+
+Wilbur realized that as long as the even, slow pace was kept he was in
+no danger, but if once the steers began to run his peril would be
+extreme. He could turn neither to the right nor to the left, the little
+pony was nothing in weight compared to the steers, and even if she were,
+he stood a chance of having his legs crushed. The only hope was to keep
+the two herds apart. He wheeled Kit. But as the little mare turned and
+faced the tossing heads and threatening horns, she knew, as did Wilbur
+instantaneously, that with the force behind them, no single man could
+stop the impetus of the herd, although only traveling slowly. Indeed, if
+he tried, he could see that the rear by pressure onwards would force the
+outside ranks midway down the herd over the edge of the cliff. Kit spun
+round again almost on one hoof, all but unseating Wilbur.
+
+But even in that brief moment there had been a change, and the boy felt
+it. The steers were nervous, and, worst of all, he knew that Kit could
+realize that he himself was frightened. When a horse feels that the
+rider is frightened, anything is apt to happen. Wilbur's judgment was
+not gone, but he was ready to yell. The herd behind grew closer and
+closer. Presently the walk broke into a short trot, the horns of the
+following bunch of steers appeared at Kit's flanks, a rumbling as of
+half-uttered bellows was heard from the rear of the herd, and, on the
+instant, the steers began to run.
+
+
+[Illustration: NURSERY FOR YOUNG TREES.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLANTATION OF YOUNG TREES.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: SOWING PINE SEED.
+
+Brush on ground is to shade tender seedlings from the heat of the sun.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: PLANTING YOUNG TREES.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ALMOST TRAMPLED TO DEATH
+
+
+The minute the stampede began Wilbur's nerves steadied, and with voice
+more than with hand he quieted Kit. It took a moment or two for the
+front group to break into the running gallop of the frightened steer,
+and two head of cattle not twenty feet from Wilbur were forced over the
+edge before the leaders started to run. In this moment the rear bunch
+closed up solidly and Wilbur was hemmed in.
+
+The pace became terrific, and as they hurtled along the face of the
+cliff with the precipice below, Wilbur noted to his horror that he was
+gradually being forced to the outer edge. Being lighter than the steers,
+the heavier animals were surging ahead alongside the cliff wall, and the
+little pony with the boy on his back was inch by inch being forced to
+the verge, of which there was a clear fall now of about one hundred
+feet. Vainly he looked for a tree overhanging the road into which he
+could leap; there were no trees. And every few strides he found himself
+appreciably nearer the edge. Looking back, as far as he could see the
+steers were crowding, and looking forward the road curved, hiding what
+might lie before.
+
+His feet were out of the stirrups and well forward, so that, although he
+had received three or four bruising encounters as the cattle lurched and
+surged against him, he was unhurt. Several times Kit was hurled from her
+stride, but she always picked up her feet neatly again. Wilbur could not
+but admire the little mare, although he felt that there was no hope for
+them.
+
+Then suddenly, with an angry bellow, a big black steer which had been
+pushing up on the inside turned his head and tried to gore the pony.
+There was not room, however, but the action so angered Wilbur that,
+pulling his six-shooter, he sent a bullet crashing to his brain. The
+steer gave a wild lurch, but did not fall immediately, and in an instant
+was forced to the edge and fell into the valley below. Instantly, Kit,
+even before Wilbur could speak or lay hand on the rein, gave a sidewise
+jump into the hole made by the place the black steer had occupied. In
+one stride as much gain away from the dangerous edge had been made as
+had been lost in the previous half mile.
+
+More at his ease, but for the fearful speed and the danger that Kit
+might lose her footing, Wilbur looked ahead, talking to the steers
+around, endeavoring to quiet them, noting that the road was turning more
+sharply in the valley, although the downward grade was steeper and it
+was increasingly hard for the little pony to hold up. But as they turned
+the curve, there, immediately before them, standing in the middle of the
+road, with their fishing poles over their shoulders, were a man and a
+boy, evidently entirely ignorant of the danger so rapidly approaching.
+The bank above was too steep to climb, and the one below straight ninety
+feet sheer to the creek. To Wilbur it looked like sure death, and a most
+awful one at that, but he at least was utterly unable to do anything to
+prevent it, and he shuddered to think that he himself might be trampling
+with his pony's hoofs on what might be below.
+
+But just as he had in that instant decided that there was no help for
+it, he suddenly saw Merritt on old Baldy shoot forward like an arrow
+from a bow stretched to the uttermost. The herd of steers was traveling
+at a rapid clip, but under the startling influence of combined quirt
+and spur, and with no room in which to display his bucking propensities,
+Baldy just put himself to running, and only hit the high spots here and
+there.
+
+It seemed incredible to Wilbur that any horse could stop, especially on
+a down grade, at the speed that Baldy was traveling, but just before he
+reached the man and boy, having previously shouted to warn them, Merritt
+pulled up with a jerk that brought Baldy clear back on his haunches.
+Like a flash of light he leaped from the horse and half lifted, half
+pushed the man into the saddle, tossed the boy up behind him, and then,
+grabbing hold of the slicker which was tied behind the cantle, he hit
+old Baldy a slap with the quirt, and down the road they went, not twenty
+yards ahead of the steers, Baldy carrying on his back the man and the
+boy, and Merritt, hanging on like grim death, trying to run, taking
+strides that looked as though he wore seven-leagued boots. The speed was
+terrific and presently Wilbur noticed that Merritt was keeping both feet
+together, putting his weight on the saddle, and vaulting along in
+immense leaps. One moment he was there, but the next moment that Wilbur
+looked ahead Baldy was still racing down the road with his double load,
+but Merritt was nowhere to be seen. It was with a sickening feeling that
+Wilbur realized that he must have lost his hold, and was in the same
+peril from which he had saved the man and the boy.
+
+For a few fearful minutes Wilbur watched the ground beneath his horse's
+feet, but saw no object in the occasional glimpses he could secure of
+the dusty road. Once again Wilbur found himself being forced to the
+outer edge of the road, but the cliff was shallowing rapidly, and now
+they were not more than twenty feet above the valley with the road
+curving into it in the distance. A couple of hundred feet further on,
+however, a hillock rose abruptly, coming within four feet of the level
+of the road, and Wilbur decided to put the pony at it, seeing there was
+a chance of safety, and that even if they both got bad falls, there was
+no fear of being trampled.
+
+Allowing the pony to come to the outside, he reined her in hard and led
+her to the jump, swinging from the saddle as he did so in order to give
+both Kit and himself a fair chance. The pony, released from the weight
+of the rider before she struck ground, met it in a fair stride, and
+without losing footing kept up the gait to the bottom of the hillock,
+pulling up herself on the level grass below. But Wilbur, not being able
+to estimate his jump, because he was in the act of vaulting from the
+saddle, struck the ground all in a heap, crumpled up as though he were
+broken in pieces and was hurled down the hill, reaching the bottom
+stunned. He was unconscious for several minutes, but when he came to
+himself, Kit was standing over him, nosing him with her soft muzzle as
+though to bring him round. Weakly he staggered to his feet, and seeing
+Kit standing patiently, managed to clamber into the saddle.
+
+The pony started immediately at an easy canter, crossing the valley and
+meeting the herd where the road ran into the level. The cattle were
+tired from the run, and sick and bruised as he was, Wilbur headed them
+off and rounded them up, being aided presently by Rodgers and Grier, who
+had found themselves unable to cut into the stampeding herd, and
+consequently had waited until the whole herd got by, when they had
+ridden back along the trail a little distance, got down to the creek by
+a bridle path, and crossed the valley by a short cut.
+
+In the distance Baldy could be seen grazing, and Wilbur lightly touched
+Kit with the spur to find out what had happened. The bay, as soon as he
+had stopped running, evidently had bucked off his two riders, who were
+still sitting on the ground, apparently dazed. The man, who was
+evidently an Eastern tourist, was pale as ashes and dumb with fright,
+and could tell nothing. The boy knew no more than, "He had to let go, he
+had to let go."
+
+Together with Grier, Wilbur started back along the road to look for what
+might be left of Merritt. The foreman tried to persuade the lad to stay,
+for he was bleeding from a scalp wound and his left wrist was sorely
+twisted, if not actually sprained, but Wilbur replied that he had said
+he was going back to look for Merritt, and go back he would if both arms
+and legs were broken. Kit, although very much blown, was willing to be
+taken up the road at a fair gallop, when, just as they turned a corner,
+they almost ran down the Supervisor, who was walking down the road as
+unconcernedly as though nothing had happened.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Merritt," cried the boy, "I thought you were dead."
+
+"Cheerful greeting, that," answered the Forester. "No, I'm not dead. You
+look nearer it than I do."
+
+"But didn't you get run down?"
+
+"Do I look as if I'd been a sidewalk for a thousand steers?" was the
+disgusted reply. "Don't ask silly questions, Loyle."
+
+But the foreman broke in:
+
+"The boy's right enough to ask," he said; "an' there's no reason why you
+shouldn't tell. How did you dodge the steers?"
+
+"That was easy enough," said Merritt. "I held on to Baldy until I saw a
+crack in the rock big enough to hold a man. Then I let go and crawled
+into that until the herd passed by."
+
+The boy breathed a sigh of relief.
+
+"I sure thought you were gone," he said.
+
+The Supervisor scanned him keenly, then slapped Kit heartily on the
+flank.
+
+"You've got a good little mare there," he said; "there's not many of
+them could have done it. Tell me all about it some time. What started
+them?" he added, turning to the cattleman.
+
+"That fool new bridge gave way just as the last of the bunch crowded on
+it. About twenty of them fell over the cliff there, and about thirty
+more along the road. But it might have been a heap worse, an' you ought
+ter have two life-savin' medals."
+
+Merritt's only reply was a gesture of protest.
+
+"An' you, youngster," went on the cattleman, "you kept your nerve and
+rode a bully ride. I wish you'd take my quirt and keep it from me as a
+remembrance of your first experience with a cattle stampede."
+
+Wilbur stammered some words of thanks, but the foreman waved them aside.
+
+"And now," said the Supervisor, with an entire change of tone, "I guess
+we'll go back and get the pack-horse and go on to the valley."
+
+As they rode over the bridge Wilbur noted with a great deal of interest
+the breakage of the supporting timbers on the outer side, and looking
+down into the valley beneath, he could see the bodies of the cattle who
+had been pushed over the edge in the stampede.
+
+"I read a story once," said the boy, "of a youngster who got caught in a
+stampede of buffalo, and when his horse lost his footing he escaped by
+jumping from the back of one buffalo to another until he reached the
+outside of the herd. But I never believed it much."
+
+"It makes a good yarn," said the Supervisor, "an' it's a little like the
+story they tell of Buffalo Bill, who, trying to get away from a buffalo
+stampede, was thrown by his horse puttin' his foot in a badger hole and
+breaking his leg."
+
+"Why, what in the world did he do?" queried Wilbur.
+
+"He waited until the foremost buffalo was just upon him, then gave a
+leap, clear over his horns, and landed on his back, then turning sharply
+round so as to face the head instead of the tail, he pulled out his
+revolver and kept shooting to one side of the buffalo's head, just past
+his eye, so that at every shot the beast turned a little more to one
+side, thus cutting him out of the herd. Then, when he was clear of the
+herd, he shot the buffalo."
+
+"What for?" asked Wilbur indignantly. "It seems a shame to kill the
+buffalo which had got him free."
+
+"What chance would he have had against an angered buffalo alone and on
+foot?" said Merritt. "He couldn't very well get off and make a bow to
+the beast and have the buffalo drop a curtsey?"
+
+"I hadn't thought of that," said the boy, laughing.
+
+"I was afraid I might have to try that dodge, but when I saw the crack
+in the rock I knew it was all right."
+
+"Well," said Wilbur as they turned off the road to where the pack-horse
+had been picketed, "I think we're both pretty lucky to have come off so
+easily."
+
+Merritt looked at the lad. He was dusty and grimy to a degree, his
+clothes were torn in a dozen places where he had gone rolling down the
+hill, a handkerchief was roughly knotted around his head, and there were
+streaks of dried blood in his hair.
+
+"You look a little the worse for wear," he said; "maybe you'd better go
+home, and I'll go on alone."
+
+"I won't," said Wilbur.
+
+"You what?" came the curt rebuke. "You mean that you would rather not."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the boy. "I mean that I don't feel too used up."
+
+The Supervisor nodded and rode on ahead. For a couple of miles or so,
+they rode single file, and in spite of the boy's bold announcement that
+he was not too badly shaken up, by the time he had ridden nearly an hour
+more in the hot sun his head was aching furiously and he was beginning
+to stiffen up. Accordingly he was glad when a cabin hove in sight, and
+he cantered up to ask if they might call for a drink of water.
+
+"We stop here," was the laconic reply.
+
+As they rode up a big man came out of the house, which was quite a
+fair-sized place, to meet them.
+
+"Well, Merritt," he said, "what have you got for me this time?"
+motioning to the boy.
+
+"No patient for you, Doc," said Merritt; "one for your wife."
+
+The mountain doctor laughed, a great big hearty laugh.
+
+"Violet," he called, "you're taking my practice away from me. Here's a
+patient that says he won't have me, but wants you."
+
+Immediately at his call, a small, slender woman came to the porch of the
+house, and seeing the doctor helping Wilbur down from the saddle,
+stepped forward.
+
+"I can walk all right," said Wilbur when the doctor put out a hand to
+steady him. "I just wanted a drink of water."
+
+"Right you are," said the doctor, "we'll give you all the water you
+want, just in a minute. Now," he continued as he led the boy into the
+house, "let's have a look at the trouble."
+
+But Wilbur interposed.
+
+"This Forest Service," he said, smiling, "is the worst that ever
+happened for having to obey orders, and Mr. Merritt put me in charge of
+your wife, not you."
+
+The big doctor put his hand on the shoulder of his wife and roared until
+the house shook with his laughter. It was impossible to resist the
+infection, and Wilbur, despite his headache, found himself laughing with
+the rest. But the doctor's wife, stepping quietly forward, took the lad
+aside and, removing the handkerchief that Grier had wound around his
+head, bathed the wound and cleansed it. She had just finished this when
+the doctor came over, still laughing. He touched the wound deftly, and
+Wilbur was amazed to find that the touch of this large, hearty man was
+just as soft and tender as that of his wife. There was power in his very
+finger-tips, and the boy felt it. He looked up, smiling.
+
+"I guess you're Doctor Davis," he said.
+
+"Why?" said the doctor; "what makes you think so?"
+
+"Oh, I just felt it," the boy replied. "I've heard a lot about you."
+
+"I'm 'it,' all right," said the doctor, "but you've refused to allow me
+to attend you. I'll turn the case over to Dr. Violet Davis," and he
+laughed again.
+
+Mrs. Davis smiled brightly in response and continued attending to the
+boy. Then she turned to the two men.
+
+"You've put this case in my charge," she said, "and I'm going to
+prescribe rest for a day or two anyway. That is," she added, "unless Mr.
+Merritt finds it compulsory to take him away."
+
+The Supervisor smiled one of his rare smiles.
+
+"I wouldn't be so unkind as to take any one away from here
+unnecessarily," he said, "no matter how busy. But there always is a lot
+to do. Ever since the beavers first started forestry, it has meant work,
+and lots of it. But if you're told to rest you've got to do it. I know.
+I've been sick myself here."
+
+The doctor slapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"Beautiful case," he said, "beautiful case. But he wouldn't obey
+orders."
+
+"He always did mine," put in Mrs. Davis.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't this time," said the Supervisor with one of his
+abrupt changes of manner, turning to the door. "I'll call for Loyle on
+my way home to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Merritt," began Mrs. Davis in protest, "he ought to have two or
+three days' rest, anyway."
+
+The chief of the forest turned to Wilbur.
+
+"Well?" he queried.
+
+The boy looked around at the comfortable home, at the big jovial doctor,
+and his charming little wife, and thought how delightful it would be to
+have a few days' rest. And his head was aching, and he was very stiff.
+Then he looked at the Supervisor, quiet and unflinching in anything that
+was to be done, working with him and helping him despite the big
+interests for which he was responsible, he thought of the Forest Service
+to which he was pledged to serve, he remembered his little tent home and
+the portion of the range over which he had control, and straightened up.
+
+"What time to-morrow?" he said. "I'll be ready."
+
+"Middle of the afternoon," said Merritt. "So long."
+
+He bade good-by to the doctor and his wife, and after having seen that
+Kit was properly attended to, went on his way to the Kern River Valley,
+to visit the Edison power plant erected on the river, and to prepare for
+the installation of the new pulp-mill.
+
+In the meantime, Wilbur, more fatigued by the day's excitement than he
+had supposed himself to be, had fallen asleep, a sleep unbroken until
+the evening. And all evening the doctor and his wife told him stories of
+the Forest Service men and of the various miners, lumbermen,
+prospectors, ranchers, and so forth, all tales of manliness, courage,
+and endurance, and not infrequently of heroism. But when Wilbur told of
+the professor and asked about other greenhorns that had come to the
+forest, the doctor turned and asked him if he knew anything of "the boy
+from Peanutville."
+
+"He had just come into camp up here in the Sierras," said the doctor on
+receiving the lad's negative reply, "from some little place in the
+middle West that was giving itself airs as a city. He had read somewhere
+about the forest Rangers, and he himself had been on several Sunday
+School picnics in the woods, so he thought that he knew all about it. At
+the end of his first couple of days' work he said:
+
+"'I never supposed that a Ranger had to cut brush and build fence and
+grub stumps and slave like a nigger. I don't believe he ought to. I
+don't think it's what my people would like to have me do. I always
+supposed that he just rode around under the trees and made outsiders toe
+the mark.'
+
+"I said he was a new Guard," the doctor continued, "but he said this in
+camp to a group of old-timers with whom he had been working. They hadn't
+worried him at all, but had given him a fair show and helped him all
+they could. But this was too rich. They glanced at each other with
+mingled contempt and amusement, then put on mournful faces, looked on
+him solemn-eyed, and regretted the cruelties of the Service.
+
+"'The boss,' they said, 'just sticks it on us all the time. We are
+workin' like slaves--Guards and Rangers and everybody. It's plumb wicked
+the way we're herded here.'
+
+"So the new hand felt comforted by this outward sympathy, and he ambled
+innocently on.
+
+"'That heavy brush tears my clothes, and my back aches, and I burned a
+shoe, and my socks are full of stickers. Then I fell on the barbed wire
+when I was stretching it--and cut my nose. I tell you what it is,
+fellows, if I ever get a chance to get away, I hope I'll never see
+another inch of barbed wire as long as I live. If I was only back in
+Peanutville, where I used to live, I could be eating a plate of ice
+cream this minute instead of working like a dog and having to wash my
+own clothes Sundays when I might be hearing the band play in the park.'
+
+"'Too bad,' shouted the old Rangers in chorus, until a peal of laughter
+that echoed through and through that mountain camp showed the indignant
+youngster that his point of view hadn't been what you might say warmly
+welcomed by the old-timers.
+
+"But the following day, as I heard the story from Charles H. Shinn," the
+doctor went on, "one of the best men in the gang took the lad aside the
+following morning as they were riding up the trail, and said to him:
+
+"'How much of that stuff you was preachin' last night did you mean? Of
+course, this is hard work; it has to be. Either leave it mighty pronto,
+or wrastle with it till you're a man at the game. I've seen lots of
+young fellows harden up--some of 'em just as green an' useless when they
+came as you are now. Don't you know you hold us back, and waste our
+time, too, on almost any job? But it's the price we have to pay up here
+to get new men started. Unless you grow to love it so much that there
+isn't anything else in all the world you'd care to do, you ain't fit for
+it, an' you'd better get out, and let some one with more sand than you
+have get in.'
+
+"Well, Loyle," the doctor said, "that youngster was provoked. He
+wasn't man enough to get really angry, so that his temper would
+keep him sticking to the work; he was one of these saucy
+slap-'em-on-the-wrist-naughty kind.
+
+"'I think all of you are crazy,' he said.
+
+"He walked into the Supervisor's office that afternoon and explained
+that the kind of work he had been given to do was altogether below his
+intellectual powers. He never understood how quickly things happened,
+but he signed a resignation blank almost before he knew it, and went
+back to Peanutville.
+
+"It so happened that one of the Rangers had friends in Peanutville, and
+the boys at the camp followed the youth's career with much interest. He
+clerked, he took money at a circus window, he tried cub newspaper work,
+he stood behind a dry-goods counter, he was everything by turns but
+nothing long."
+
+"What finally happened to him?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Last I heard he was a salesman in a woman's shoe store. But he's still
+with us in spirit," said the doctor, "as a horrible example. Right now,
+down in the heart of a forest fire, when the Rangers are working like
+men possessed down some hot gulch, one will say to the other:
+
+"'Gee, Jack, if I was only back where I used to be, I could be having a
+plate of ice cream this minute.' And the other will reply: 'I wish I
+might be back in Peanutville and hear the band play in the park.' And
+both men will laugh and go at the work all the harder for realizing what
+a miserable failure the weak greenhorn had been."
+
+"I'm thinking," said Wilbur, "that I'll never give them the chance to
+talk like that about me!"
+
+"From what I heard," said the doctor, "I don't believe you will."
+
+"And from what I see," said the doctor's wife gently, as the two rose
+and bade the "patient" good-night, "I know we shall all be glad that you
+have come to us here in the forest."
+
+
+[Illustration: WHAT TREE-PLANTING WILL DO.
+
+Pine plantation fifty years old showing growth of timber. Trunks,
+however, should not show so many superfluous low branches.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE FIRST CONSERVATION EXPERT
+
+Work of a beaver in felling a tree with which to build a dam for his
+home.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HOW THE FOREST WON A GREAT DOCTOR
+
+
+In the middle of the night the telephone bell rang. Instantly Wilbur
+heard the doctor's voice responding.
+
+"Yes, where is it?" he queried. "Where? Oh, just beyond Basco Aleck's
+place. All right, I'll start right away."
+
+There was some rummaging in the other rooms, and in less than five
+minutes' time the clatter of hoofs outside told the boy that the doctor
+was off, probably on the huge gray horse Wilbur had seen in the corral
+as he rode in that day. It was broad daylight when he wakened again, and
+Mrs. Davis was standing beside him with his breakfast tray. It was so
+long since Wilbur had not had to prepare breakfast for himself that he
+felt quite strange, but the night's rest had eased him wonderfully, and
+aside from a little soreness where he had had his scalp laid open, he
+was quite himself again.
+
+"Did Doctor Davis have to go away in the night?" he asked. "I thought I
+heard the telephone."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor's wife. "But that is nothing new. Almost once
+a week, at least, he is sent for in the night, or does not reach home
+till late in the night. I've grown used to it," she added; "doctors'
+wives must."
+
+"But distances are so great, and there are so few trails," said the boy,
+"and Doctor Davis is so famous, one would think that he would do better
+in a city."
+
+"Better for himself?" came the softly uttered query.
+
+The boy colored hotly as he realized the idea of selfishness that there
+had been in his speech.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "No, I see. But it does seem strange, just
+the same, that he should be out here."
+
+"He wouldn't be happy anywhere else."
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs. Davis," said the boy, who had caught something of the
+Supervisor's abruptness, "but what brought him here?"
+
+"Do you not," answered the doctor's wife, giving question for question,
+"know the old hunter, 'Rifle-Eye Bill'? I don't know his right name.
+Why, of course, you must; he's the Ranger in your part of the forest."
+
+"Do I know him?" said Wilbur, and without stopping for further question
+talked for ten minutes on end, telling all that the old hunter had done
+for him and how greatly he admired him. "Know him," he concluded, "I
+should just guess I did."
+
+"It was he," said the woman, "who persuaded us to come out here."
+
+"Won't you tell me?" pleaded the boy. "I'd love to hear anything about
+Rifle-Eye. And the doctor, too," he added as an afterthought.
+
+"It was long ago," she began, "seventeen years ago. Yes," she continued
+with a smile at the lad's surprise, "I have lived here seventeen years."
+
+"Do you--" began the boy excitedly, "do you ride a white mare?"
+
+This time it was the doctor's wife who colored. She flushed to the roots
+of her hair.
+
+"Yes," she answered hurriedly, and went on to explain the early
+conditions of the forest. But Wilbur was not listening, he was
+remembering the stories that he had heard since his arrival into the
+forest of the "little white lady," of whom the ranchers and miners
+always spoke so reverently. But presently Rifle-Eye's name attracted his
+attention and he listened again.
+
+"We were camping," she said, "in one of the redwood groves not far from
+San Francisco for the summer, the doctor having been appointed an
+attending surgeon at one of the larger hospitals, although he was very
+young. We had been married only a little over a year. One evening just
+after supper, Rifle-Eye, although we did not know him then, walked into
+camp.
+
+"'You are a doctor, an operating doctor?' he inquired.
+
+"'Yes,' my husband replied, 'I am a surgeon.'
+
+"Then the old hunter came to where I was standing.
+
+"'You are a doctor's wife?' he queried. You know that direct way of
+his?"
+
+"Indeed I do," Wilbur replied. "It's one you've got to answer."
+
+"So I said, 'Yes, I am a doctor's wife,' just as if I was a little girl
+answering a catechism.
+
+"'The case is seventy miles away,' he said, 'and there's a horse
+saddled.' He turned to me. 'A woman I know is coming over in a little
+while to stay the night with you, so that you will not be lonely.
+Come, doctor.' There was a hurried farewell, and they were gone. I can
+laugh now, as I think of it, but it was dreadful then.
+
+"Presently, however, the woman that he had spoken of came over to our
+camp. She was a mountaineer's wife, and very willing and helpful. But I
+was a little frightened, as I had never seen any one quite like her
+before."
+
+"You couldn't have had much in common," said Wilbur, who was observant
+enough to note the artistic nature of the room wherein he lay, the
+exquisite cleanliness and freshness of all his surroundings, and the
+faultless English of the doctor's wife. Besides, she was pretty and
+sweet-looking, and boys are quick to note it.
+
+"We didn't," she answered, "but when I happened to mention the old
+hunter, why the woman was transformed. She brightened up, and told me
+tales far into the night of what the old hunter had done until," she
+smiled, "I almost thought he must be as nice as Doctor Davis."
+
+"Doctor Davis does look awfully fine," agreed Wilbur.
+
+"I always think so," said his wife demurely. "Two days passed before the
+men returned, and when I got a chance alone with my husband, he was
+twice as bad as the mountaineer's wife. He would talk of nothing but
+Rifle-Eye and the need of surgical work in the mountains.
+
+"'And you, Violet,' he said, 'you're going to ride there with me to-day
+and help look after this man.' It did rather surprise me, because I knew
+that he hated to have me troubled with any details of his work, for he
+used to like to leave his profession behind when he came home. So I knew
+that he thought it important, and I went. But I rode the greater part of
+the day with the old hunter, and long before he reached the place where
+the man was who needed me, all my objections had vanished and I was
+eager to begin."
+
+"That's just the way that Rifle-Eye does," said the boy, "he makes it
+seem that what he wants you to do is just what you want to do yourself."
+
+"When I got to the place," she went on, "I found that it was a Basque
+shepherd, who had been hurt by some of the cattlemen. That made it much
+more interesting for me, for you know, my people were Basques, that
+strange old race, who, tradition tells, are all that are left of the
+shepherds on the mountains of the lost Atlantis. So I nursed him as best
+I could, and presently, from far and wide over the Rockies I would get
+messages from the Basque shepherds."
+
+"Didn't you put a stop to the feuds at one time?" asked Wilbur. "The old
+hunter told me something about 'the little white lady' and the sheep
+war."
+
+"I helped in many of them," she said simply, "and when they came to me
+for advice I tried to give it. Doctor Davis was always there to suggest
+the more advisable course, and I put it to these Bascos, as they called
+them, so that they would understand."
+
+"How about Burleigh?" asked Wilbur.
+
+But the doctor's wife disclaimed all knowledge of a sheep-owner called
+Burleigh.
+
+"All right," said Wilbur, "then I'll give my share of the story, as the
+old hunter told it to me. That is, if you don't mind."
+
+"Tell it," she smiled, "if you like."
+
+"Well," said Wilbur, "one Sunday afternoon a Ranger, whose cabin was
+near a lookout point, said to his wife, 'I'll ride up to the peak, and
+be back in time for supper.' He went off in his shirt-sleeves,
+bare-headed, for an hour's ride, and was gone a week. Up in the brush he
+found the trail of a band of sheep, and although he was cold and hungry
+and his horse was playing out, he stuck right on the job until it got
+too dark to see. The second day he smashed in the door of a miner's
+cabin, got some grub, and nailed a note on the door saying who'd taken
+it, and kept on. He tired his horse out, and left him in another
+fellow's corral, but kept on going on foot. The sheepman was known as
+dangerous, but this little Ranger--did I tell you he was Irish--stuck to
+it, trusting to find some way out even if the grazer did get ugly.
+
+"At last he came on the sheep in a mountain meadow, and Burleigh on his
+horse by them, a rifle across his saddle bow. The Ranger said little at
+the time, and the two men went home to supper. After eating, as they sat
+there, the Ranger said his say. He told the grazer what were the orders
+he had, and that he would have to live up to them. But the grazer had a
+copy of 'orders,' too, and he had hired a lawyer to find out how he
+could get out of them. So he lit into the Ranger.
+
+"'You see, Mac,' he said, 'those orders don't mean anything. They may be
+all right in Washington, but they don't go here. You can't stop me, nor
+arrest me, nor hurt my sheep. Your bosses won't stand by you if you get
+into any mix-up. The best thing you can do is to stay here to-night, and
+then go home. Make a report on it, if you like, I don't care."
+
+"And then the Ranger began," the boy went on. "The old hunter told me
+that this little bit of an Irishman told the grazer about his work as a
+Ranger. He told him how he had seen the good that was going to be done,
+and that having put his hand to the plow, he couldn't let it go again.
+He didn't know much about it, and he'd never tried to talk about it
+before, but the natural knack of talking which his race always has came
+to help him out. Then he began to talk of the sheep and cattle war, and
+the shame that it was to have them killing each other's flocks and
+shooting each other because they could not agree about the right to
+grass.
+
+"'An' there's one more thing,' he said, ''tis only the other day that I
+was talkin' to the "little white lady," and she said she knew that you
+wouldn't be the one to start up trouble again.' And he wound up with an
+appeal to his better judgment, which, so the old hunter told me the
+grazer said afterward, would have got a paralyzed mule on the move.
+
+"When he got through, Burleigh merely answered:
+
+"'Mac, take that blanket and go to bed. I'll talk to you in the
+morning.'
+
+"When the Ranger woke, a little after daylight, the grazer sat beside
+his blanket, smoking. He began without wasting any time.
+
+"'Mac,' he said, 'I'm going to take my sheep out to-day. Not because of
+any of your little bits of printed orders--I could drive a whole herd
+through them; and not because of any of your bosses back in Washington,
+who wouldn't know a man's country if they ever got into it, and couldn't
+find their way out; and not entirely because, as you say, "the little
+white lady" trusts me, though perhaps that's got a good deal to do with
+it. But when I find a man who is so many different kinds of a fool as
+you seem to be, it looks some like my moral duty to keep him out of an
+asylum.' And that's the story I heard about Burleigh.
+
+"But I interrupted you," the boy continued, "you were going to tell me
+about Doctor Davis. Didn't you ever go back to the city?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied. "The doctor had to take his hospital service,
+and for three years he spent six months in the hospital in the city,
+and six months out here in the mountains. But there were several good
+surgeons in the city, and only one on the great wide Sierras, and, as
+you know, he is strong enough for the hardest work. So,--I remember well
+the night,--he came to me, and hesitatingly suggested that we should
+live out here for always, but that he didn't wish to take me away from
+my city friends. And I--oh, I had been wanting to come all the time. I
+was just one out of so many in the city, paying little social calls, but
+here I found so many people to be fond of. I think I know every one on
+the mountains here, and they are all so kind to me. And," she added
+proudly, "so appreciative of the doctor."
+
+Wilbur laughed as she gathered up the things on the tray.
+
+"Well," he said, "I don't believe the old hunter ever did a better thing
+when he got Doctor Davis to come to the forest--unless, it was the day
+'the little white lady' came with him. Haven't I had a broken head, and
+am I not her patient? You bet!"
+
+But Mrs. Davis only smiled as she passed from the room.
+
+Wilbur spent the rest of the morning in the doctor's library, and was
+more than delighted to learn that these books were there for borrowing,
+on the sole condition that they should be returned. He learned, later,
+that under the guise of a library to lend books, all sorts of little
+plans were done for the cheering of the lives of those who lived in
+isolated portions of the mountain range. The boy had not been
+twenty-four hours under the doctor's roof, yet he was quite at home, and
+sorry to go when the Supervisor rode up. He had been careful to groom
+Kit very thoroughly, and she was standing saddled at the door, half an
+hour before the time appointed. He was ready to swing into the saddle as
+soon as Merritt appeared.
+
+"Not so fast, Loyle," he said, "this is once that promptness is a bad
+thing. I must have a word or two with Mrs. Davis; he'd be a pretty poor
+stick who ever missed that chance."
+
+So, while he went inside, Wilbur looked over the pack to see that it was
+riding easily, and led Baldy to where he could have a few mouthfuls of
+grass. And when he came out the Forester was even more silent than
+usual, and rode for two hours without uttering a syllable.
+
+"Did you find everything going on all right for the pulp-mill?" asked
+Wilbur, finally desiring to give a chance for conversation. But Merritt
+simply replied, "Fairly so," and relapsed into silence. He wakened into
+sudden energy, however, when, a half an hour later, in making a shortcut
+to headquarters he came upon an old abandoned trail. It was somewhat
+overgrown, but the Supervisor turned into it and followed it for some
+length, finally arriving at a large spring, one of the best in the
+forest, which evidently had been known at some time prior to the Forest
+Service taking control, but now had passed into disuse. But Merritt was
+even more surprised to find beside the spring a prospector of the old
+type, with his burro and pack, evidently making camp for the night.
+
+"Evenin'," said Merritt, "where did you get hold of this trail?"
+
+"Allers knew about it," said the prospector. "I s'pose," he added,
+noting the bronze "U. S." on the khaki shirt, "that you're the Ranger."
+
+"Supervisor," replied Merritt. "Locating a mineral claim, are you?"
+
+"Not yet," the other replied; "I ain't located any mineral to claim yet.
+I'll come to you for a permit as soon as I do. But I'm lookin' for
+Burns's lost mine."
+
+"You don't believe in that old yarn, surely?" questioned the other
+surprisedly.
+
+"Would I be lookin' for it if I hadn't doped it out that it was there?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Oh, somewheres around here. I reckon it's further north. But if you
+don't take any stock in it, there's no use talkin'."
+
+"I'm not denying its existence," said Merritt, "but you know dozens of
+men have looked for that and no one's found it yet."
+
+"There can't be but one find it," said the prospector. "I aims to be
+that one. I used to think it was further south. Twenty years ago I spent
+a lot o' time down at the end of the range. Two seasons ago I got a
+hunch it was further north. I couldn't get away last year, so here I am.
+I've been busy on Indian Creek for some years."
+
+"Got a claim there?"
+
+"Got the only jade in the country."
+
+"Was it you located that mine in the Klamath Forest?" queried the
+Supervisor interestedly. "But that's quite a good deposit. I shouldn't
+think you'd be prospecting now."
+
+"I didn't for two years. But, pard, it was dead slow, an' so I hired a
+man to run the works while I hit the old trail again. I don't have to
+get anybody to grubstake me now. I've been able to boost some of the
+others who used to help me."
+
+"But what started you looking for Burns's mine? I thought that story had
+been considered a fake years ago."
+
+"What is a lost mine?" asked Wilbur.
+
+Merritt looked at him a moment thoughtfully, then turned to the
+prospector.
+
+"You tell the yarn," he said. "You probably know it better than I do."
+
+"I'm not much on talkin'," began the prospector. "Away back in the
+sixties, after the first gold-rush, Jock Burns, one of the old
+Forty-niners, started prospectin' in the Sierras. There's not much here,
+but one or two spots pay. By an' by Burns comes into the settlements
+with a few little bags of gold dust, an' nuggets of husky size. He blows
+it all in. He spends free, but he's nowise wasteful, so he stays in town
+maybe a month.
+
+"Then he disappears from view, an' turns up in less than another month
+in town with another little bundle of gold dust. It don't take much
+figurin' to see that where there's a pay streak so easy worked as that,
+there's a lot more of it close handy. An' so they watches Burns close.
+Burns, he can't divorce himself from his friends any more than an Indian
+can from his color. This frequent an' endurin' friendliness preys some
+on Burns's nature, an' bein' of a bashful disposition, he makes several
+breaks to get away. But while the boys are dead willin' to see him start
+for the mountains, they reckon an escort would be an amiable form of
+appreciation. Also, they ain't got no objection to bein' shown the way
+to the mine.
+
+"Burns gets a little thin an' petered out under the strain, but time an'
+agin he succeeds in givin' 'em the slip. Sure enough he lines up a month
+or two later with some more of the real thing. Finally, one of these
+here friends gets a little peevish over his frequent failures to stack
+the deck on Burns. He avers that he'll insure that Burns don't spend any
+more coin until he divvys up, an' accordin'ly he hands him a couple of
+bullets where he thinks they'll do most good."
+
+"What did he want to kill him for?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"He didn't aim to kill him prompt," was the reply. "His idee was to trot
+him down the hill by easy stages, an' gradooally indooce the old
+skinflint to talk. But his shootin' was a trifle too straight, and
+Burns jest turns in his toes then an' there. This displeases the
+sentiment of the community. Then some literary shark gits up and spins a
+yarn about killin' some goose what laid eggs that assayed a hundred per
+cent., an' they decides that it would be a humane thing to arrange that
+Burns shan't go out into the dark without some comfortin' friend beside
+him. So they dispatches the homicide, neat an' pretty, with the aid of a
+rope, an' remarks after the doin's is over that Burns is probably a heap
+less lonesome."
+
+"Well, I should think that would have stopped all chance of further
+search," said Wilbur.
+
+"It did. But a year or two after that, Burns acquires the habit of
+intrudin' his memory on the minds of some of these here friends. When it
+gits noised about that a certain kind of nose-paint is some advantageous
+toward this particular brand of dream, why, there ain't no way of
+keeping a sufficient supply in camp. I goes up against her myself, an'
+wild licker she is. But one by one, the boys all gets to dreamin' that
+Burns has sorter floated afore them, accordin' to ghostly etiquette, an'
+pointed a ghostly finger at the ground. Which ain't so plumb exact, for
+no one supposes a mine to be up in the air. But different ones affirms
+that they can recognize the features of the landscape which the ghost of
+Burns frequents. As, however, they all strikes out in different
+directions, I ain't takin' no stock therein.
+
+"But, two years ago, when I was meanderin' around lookin' for signs, I
+comes across the bones of an old mule with the remains of a saddle on
+his back, an' I didn't have any trouble in guessin' it to be Burns's.
+There was no way of tellin', though, whether he was goin' or returnin'
+when the mule broke down, or if he was far or near the mine, but,
+anyhow, it gave some idee of direction, an' I reckon I'm goin' to find
+it."
+
+"All right," said the Supervisor as they shook up their horses ready to
+go, "I hope you have good luck and find it."
+
+"I'll let you or Rifle-Eye know as soon as I do," called back the
+prospector, "an' you folks can pan out some samples. If I find it, we'll
+make the Yukon look sick."
+
+Merritt laughed as they cantered down the trail to headquarters.
+
+
+[Illustration: SAND BURYING A PEAR ORCHARD.
+
+Almost too late to save a fine plantation which a suitable wind-break of
+trees would have guarded.
+
+_Photo by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A ROLLING CLOUD OF SMOKE
+
+
+The days became hotter and hotter, and each morning when Wilbur rose he
+searched eagerly for some sign of cloud that should presage rain, but
+the sky remained cloudless. Several times he had heard of fires in the
+vicinity, but they had kept away from that portion of the forest over
+which he had control, and he had not been summoned from his post. The
+boy had given up his former schedule of covering his whole forest twice
+a week, and now was riding on Sundays, thus reaching every lookout point
+every other day. It was telling upon the horses, and he himself was
+conscious of the strain, but he was more content in feeling that he had
+gone the limit in doing the thing that was given him to do.
+
+One day, while in a distant part of the forest, he came upon the signs
+of a party of campers. Since his experience with the tourists the boy
+had become panic-stricken by the very idea of careless visitors to the
+forest, and the chance of their setting a fire, and so, recklessly, he
+put his horse at a sharp gallop and started down the trail that they had
+left. The signs were new, so that he overtook them in a couple of hours.
+But in the meantime he had passed the place where the party had made
+their noonday halt, and he could see that full precautions had been
+taken to insure the quenching of the fire.
+
+When he overtook them, moreover, he was wonderfully relieved and freed
+from his fears. There were six in all, the father, who was quite an old
+man, the mother, two grown-up sons, and two younger girls. They had
+heard his horse come galloping down the trail, and the two younger men
+had hung back to be the first to meet him.
+
+"Which way?" one of them asked, as Wilbur pulled his horse down to a
+walk.
+
+"Your way," said Wilbur, "I guess. I just rode down to see who it was on
+the trail. There was a bunch of tourists hanging around here a few weeks
+ago, and the forest floor is too dry to take any chances with their
+campfires."
+
+"Oh, that's it," said the former speaker. Then, with a laugh, he
+continued: "I guess we aren't in that class."
+
+"I can see you're not," the boy replied, "but I'm one of the Forest
+Service men, and it's a whole lot better to be safe than sorry."
+
+"Right," the other replied. "I think you might ride on with us a bit,"
+he continued, "and talk to the rest of them. It may ease their minds.
+You were headed our way down that trail as though you were riding for
+our scalps."
+
+Wilbur laughed at the idea of his inspiring fear in the two stalwart men
+riding beside him.
+
+"I guess I'd have had some job," he said, "if I had tried it on."
+
+"Well," the first speaker answered, "we wouldn't be the first of the
+family to decorate a wigwam that way. My grandfather an' his two
+brothers got ambushed by some Apaches in the early seventies."
+
+"Your grandfather?" the boy repeated.
+
+"Sure, son. Most of the fellows that got the worst of it with the
+Indians was some one's granddad, I reckon. One of my uncles, father's
+brother, was with them at the time, and he got scalped, too. It isn't so
+long ago since the days of the Indians, son, an' it's wonderful to think
+of the families livin' peacefully where the war-parties used to ride.
+That's goin' to be a great country down there. But," he broke off
+suddenly, "here's dad."
+
+The bent figure in the saddle, riding an immense iron gray mare,
+straightened up as the three rode close, and the old man turned a keen
+glance on the boy. Instantly, Wilbur was reminded of the old hunter,
+although the two men were as unlike as they could be, and in that same
+instant the boy realized that the likeness lay in the eyes. The
+springiness might have gone out of his step, and to a certain extent the
+seat in the saddle was unfirm, and the strength and poise of the body
+showed signs of abatement, but the fire in the eyes was undimmed and
+every line of the features was instinct to a wonderful degree with life
+and vitality. After a question or two to his sons he turned to the boy,
+and in response to a query as to his destination, replied, in a
+sing-song voice that was reminiscent of frontier camp-meetings:
+
+"I'm goin' to the Promised Land. It's been a long an' a weary road, but
+the time of rejoicin' has come. It is writ that the desert shall blossom
+as a rose, an' I'm goin' to grow rose-trees where the cactus used to be;
+the solitary place shall be alone no more, an' I and mine are flockin'
+into it; the lion an' wolf shall be no more therein, an' the varmints
+all are gone away; an' a little child shall lead them, an' before I die
+I reckon to see my children an' my children's children under the shadow
+of my vine an' fig tree."
+
+Wilbur looked a little bewilderedly at the two younger men and one of
+them said hastily:
+
+"We're goin' down to the Salt River Valley, down in Arizona, where the
+government has irrigated land."
+
+"Oh, I know," said Wilbur, "that's one of the big projects of the
+Reclamation Service."
+
+"Have you been down there at all?"
+
+"No," the boy answered, "but I understand that to a very great extent
+much of the Forest Service work is being done with irrigation in view."
+
+"They used to call it," broke out the old prophet again, "the 'land that
+God forgot,' but now they're callin' it the 'land that God remembered.'"
+
+Wilbur waited a moment to see if the old man would speak again, but as
+he was silent, he turned to the man beside him:
+
+"How did you get interested in this land?" he asked.
+
+"I was born," the other answered, "in one of the villages of the
+cliff-dwellers, who lived so many years ago. Dad, he always used to
+think that the sudden droppin' out of those old races an' the endurin'
+silence about them was some kind of a visitation. An' he always believed
+that the curse, whatever it was, would be taken off."
+
+"That's a queer idea," said the boy; "I never heard it before."
+
+"Well," said the other, "it does seem queer. An' when the government
+first started this reclamation work, dad he thought it was a sign, and
+he went into every project, I reckon, the government ever had. An' they
+used to say that unless 'the Apache Prophet,' as they called him, had
+been once on a project, it was no use goin' on till he came."
+
+"But what did he do?"
+
+"They always gave him charge of a gang of men for as long as he wanted
+it, and Jim an' I, we used to boss a gang, too. We've been on the
+Huntley and Sun River in Montana, we've laid the foundation of the
+highest masonry dam in the world--the Shoshone dam in Wyoming,--helped
+build a canal ninety-five miles long in Nebraska, I've driven team on
+the Belle Fourche in South Dakota; in Kansas, where there's no surface
+water, I've dug wells that with pumps will irrigate eight thousand
+acres, and away down in New Mexico on the Pecos and in Colorado on the
+Rio Grande I've helped begin a new life for those States."
+
+"An' a river shall flow out of it," the old man burst forth again, "an'
+I reckon thar ain't a river flowin' nowhere that's forgot. I don't know
+where Jordan rolls, but any stream that brings smilin' plenty where the
+desert was before looks enough like Jordan to suit me. I've seen it, I
+tell you," he added fiercely, turning to the boy, "I've seen the desert
+an' I've seen Eden, an' I'm goin' there to live. An' where the flamin'
+sword of thirst once whirled, there's little brooks a-ripplin' an' the
+flowers is springin' fair."
+
+"You must have seen great changes?" suggested the boy, interested in the
+old man's speech.
+
+"Five years ago," he answered, "we were campin' on the Snake River, in
+southern Idaho. There was sage-brush, an' sand, an' stars, an' nothin'
+else. An engineerin' fellow, who he was I dunno, rides up to the fire.
+Where he comes from I dunno; I reckon his body came along the road of
+the sage-brush and the sand, but his mind came by the stars. An' he
+takes the handle of an ax, and draws out on the sand an irrigatin'
+plan. There wasn't a house for thirty miles. An' he just asks if he
+shall go ahead. An' I knows he's right, an' I says I knows he's right,
+an' he goes straight off to Washington, an' now there's three thousand
+people where the sage-brush was, and right on the very spot where my
+campfire smoked just five years ago, a school has been opened with over
+a hundred children there."
+
+He stopped as suddenly as he began.
+
+"There was some great work in the Gunnison canyon, was there not?"
+queried Wilbur.
+
+The old man made no reply, and the son answered the question.
+
+"When they had to lower a man from the top into the canyon, seven
+hundred feet below," he said, "Dad was the first to volunteer. I reckon,
+son, there's no greater story worth the tellin' than the Uncompahgre
+tunnel. And then, I ain't told nothin' about the big Washington and
+Oregon valleys, where tens of thousands now have homes an' are rearin'
+the finest kind of men an' women. But, as dad says, we're comin' home.
+There's four centuries of our history and there's seven centuries of
+Moki traditions, an' still there's nothing to tell me who the people are
+who built the cliff-town where I was born. Dad, he thinks that when the
+water comes, perhaps the stones will speak. I don't know, but if they
+ever do, I want to be there to hear. It's the strangest, wildest place
+in all the world, I think, and while it is harsh and unkindly, still
+it's home. Dad's right there. These forests are all right," he added,
+remembering that the boy was attached to the Forest Service, "but for
+me, I want a world whose end you can't see an' where every glance leads
+up."
+
+"Do you suppose," said Wilbur, "that in the days of the cliff-dwellers,
+and earlier, the 'inland empire' was densely populated?"
+
+"Some time," the other replied slowly, "it must have been. Not far from
+my cliff home is the famous Cheltro Palace, which contains over thirty
+million blocks of stone."
+
+"How big is it?" asked Wilbur.
+
+"Well, it is four stories high, nearly five hundred feet long, an' just
+half that width."
+
+Wilbur whistled.
+
+"My stars," he ejaculated, "that is big! And is there nothing left to
+tell about them?" he asked.
+
+The other shook his head.
+
+"Nothing," he answered.
+
+"They were, an' they were not," interjected the old patriarch. "I looked
+for the place where I should find him, an' lo, he was gone. They were
+eatin' an' drinkin' when the end came, an' they knew it not. Like enough
+they had some warnin' which they heeded not, an' their house is left
+unto them desolate. An' we go in and possess their land. Young man, come
+with us."
+
+Wilbur started.
+
+"Oh, I can't," he said. "I should like to see some of those projects,
+but my work is here. But I'm one of you," he added eagerly; "the rivers
+that flow down to enrich your desert rise from springs in our mountains,
+and all those springs would dry up if the forests were destroyed. And
+all the headwaters of the streams are in our care."
+
+"You kind of look after them when they're young," Wilbur's companion
+suggested, "that we can use them when the time is ripe."
+
+"That is just it," said Wilbur. Then, turning to the old man, he added:
+
+"I must go back to my patrol," he said, "but when you're down in that
+Garden of Eden, where the river is making the world all over again,
+you'll remember us once in a while, and the little bit of a stream
+that flows out of my corral will always have good wishes for you down
+there."
+
+The old man turned in his saddle with great dignity.
+
+"There be vessels to honor," he said gravely, "an' to every one his
+gifts. Go back to your forest home an' work, an' take an old man's
+wishes that while water runs you may never want for work worth doin',
+for friends worth havin', an' at the last a tally you ain't ashamed to
+show."
+
+Wilbur raised his hat in salute for reply and reined Kit in until the
+party was lost to view. The afternoon was drawing on and the lad had
+lost nearly two hours in following the party, and in his chat with the
+old patriarch, but he could not but feel that even the momentary glimpse
+he had been given of the practical workings of the reclamation work of
+the government had gone far to emphasize and render of keener personal
+interest all that he had learned at school or heard from the Forest
+Service men about the making of a newer world within the New World
+itself. And when he remembered that over a quarter of a million
+families, within a space of about six years, have made their homes on
+what was an absolute desert ten years ago, and that these men and women
+were stirred with the same spirit as the old patriarch, he felt, as he
+had said, that the conserving of the mountain streams was work worth
+while.
+
+As it chanced, he passed over the little stream whose channel he had
+cleared on one of his patrol rides, and he stopped a moment to look at
+it.
+
+"Well," he said aloud, "I suppose some youngster some day will be
+picking oranges off a tree that would have died if I hadn't done that
+day's work," and he rode on to his camp greatly pleased with himself.
+
+For a day or two the boy found himself quite unable to shake the spell
+of the old patriarch's presence off his mind, and the more he thought
+over it, the more he realized that scarcely any one thing in the whole
+of the United States loomed larger on its future than the main idea of
+Conservation. It had been merely a word before, but now it was a
+reality, and he determined to take the first opportunity he would have,
+during his vacation, of going down to the Salt River Valley to see the
+old patriarch once again.
+
+And still the weather grew hotter and the sky remained cloudless. And
+now, every evening, Rifle-Eye would telephone over to make sure that
+Wilbur was back at camp and that there was as yet no danger. They had
+had one quite sharp tussle at a distant point of the forest, and one day
+Wilbur had received orders to make a long ride to a lookout point in
+another part of the forest, the work of a Guard who had been called away
+to fight fire, but so far, Wilbur had been free. Two or three times he
+found himself waking suddenly in the night, possessed with an intense
+desire to saddle Kit and ride off to a part of the forest where he had
+either dreamed or thought a fire was burning, but Rifle-Eye had been
+careful to warn him against this very thing, and although the morning
+found him simply wild to ride to this point of supposed danger, he had
+followed orders and ridden his regular round.
+
+Although Wilbur's camp was high, the heat grew hard to bear, and when
+the boy passed from the shade of the pine along the naked rock to some
+lookout point the ground seemed to blaze under him. The grass was
+rapidly turning brown in the exposed places, and the pine needles were
+as slippery as the smoothest ice.
+
+Just at noon, one morning, Wilbur turned his horse--he was not riding
+Kit that day--into one of these open trails, and taking out his glasses,
+commenced to sweep the horizon. A heat haze was abroad, and his
+over-excited eyes seemed to see smoke everywhere. But, as he swept round
+the horizon, suddenly his whole figure stiffened. He looked long, then,
+with a sigh of relief, turned away, and completed his circuit of the
+horizon. This done, he directed the glasses anew where he had looked
+before. He looked long, unsatisfied, then lay down on the rock where he
+could rest the glasses and scanned the scene for several minutes.
+
+"Be sure," Merritt had once warned him, "better spend a half an hour at
+the start than lose two hours later."
+
+But Wilbur felt sure and rushed for his horse. Half-way he paused. Then,
+going deliberately into the shade of a heavy spruce, he half-closed his
+eyes for a minute or two to let the muscles relax. Then quietly he came
+to the edge of the cliff, and directing his glasses point-blank at the
+place he had been examining so closely, scanned it in every detail. He
+slipped the glasses back into their case, snapped the clasp firmly,
+walked deliberately back to his horse, who had been taking a few
+mouthfuls of grass, tightened the cinches, looked to it that the saddle
+was resting true and that the blanket had not rucked up, vaulted into
+the saddle, and rode to the edge of the cliff. There was no doubt of it.
+Hanging low in the heavy air over and through the dark foliage of pine
+and spruce was a dull dark silver gleam, which changed enough as the
+sunlight fell upon it to show that it was eddying vapor rather than the
+heavier waves of fog.
+
+"Smoke!" he said. "We've got to ride for it."
+
+
+[Illustration: NO WATER, NO FORESTS. NO FORESTS, NO WATER.
+
+Example of country which irrigation will cause to become wonderfully
+fertile.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: WITH WATER!
+
+In the foreground, a field and orchard; in the background, the
+sand-dunes of the arid desert. Transformation effected by a tiny stream
+and a poplar wind-break.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE FOREST ABLAZE
+
+
+As Wilbur broke into a steady, if fast pace, it seemed to him that all
+his previous experiences in the forest had been directed to this one
+end. True, once before, he had seen smoke in the distance and had ridden
+to it, but then he had felt that it was a small fire which he would be
+able to put out, as indeed it had proved. But now, while there was no
+greater cloud of smoke visible than there had been before, the boy felt
+that this was in some measure different.
+
+As his horse's hoofs clattered on the trail, it seemed to his excited
+fancy that every inch of ground was crying to the valley below, "He's
+coming," the wind that blew past him seemed filled with purpose, every
+eddying gust awoke in him a greater desire to reach the place of danger
+before the wind should rise to higher gusts, and as the needles of the
+pines whispered overhead it seemed to Wilbur that they murmured, "Hurry,
+hurry, if you want to be there on time." Over and over again, he found
+himself on the point of using the whip or spurs to induce a greater
+burst of speed, but as often as he did so, the old short, curtly-worded
+counsels of Merritt came back to him, never to press his horse if the
+ride was to be of any length, and he grew to believe that the animal
+knew as well as the rider the errand on which he was bound.
+
+He had thought, before starting, of riding back to his camp and
+telephoning to Rifle-Eye, but the knowledge that after all it might be a
+little fire kept him back. All the tales that he had ever heard about
+forest fires rushed through his mind, but he resolutely set them aside
+to watch his horse's path, to hold him in where he would be apt to
+stumble, to give him his head on rising ground, and to bring him to
+speed where the trail was easy to follow. Two hours he rode, his horse
+well in hand, until he came to the place where he had decided from his
+lookout point that he would have to leave the trail and plunge through
+the forest itself.
+
+This was a very different matter, and Wilbur found himself wondering how
+his horse kept his footing. He was not riding Kit, for which he was
+glad, as in leaving the trail and plunging downhill he had struck some
+parts of the forest where undergrowth was present, and his favorite
+mare's slender legs would have been badly scratched. Also the footing
+grew dangerous and uncertain. There had been many windfalls in the
+forest, and now was no time to take them quietly; a flying leap, not
+knowing what might be on the other side, a stumble, perhaps, which sent
+the boy's heart into his mouth, a quick recovery, and they were off
+again, only to find, perhaps, a few yards further on, a bowlder-strewn
+gully which it would have been madness to take at other than a walk. But
+the boy chafed terribly at each and every stay to his ride, and he had
+to hold himself in hand as much as he had his horse.
+
+Little by little the exhilaration of the ride stole into his veins. He
+was alone in the forest, he and his horse, the world was all before, and
+he must ride and ride. He shouted as he rode under the towering pines,
+raced across a clearing with a whoop that roused the echoes, and yelled
+for sheer delight in the mad ride through the untraveled forest, where,
+as the knights of old, he rode forth to conquer and to do.
+
+But a sudden, sharp, acrid whiff of vapor in his nostrils checked his
+riotous impulses. It was one thing to ride out to meet the foe, it was
+another matter when the foe was known to be near. A half mile nearer and
+the acrid taste in the air turned to a defined veil of smoke, intangible
+and unreal, at first, which merely seemed to hang about the trunks of
+the mighty trees and make them seem dim and far away. Nearer yet, and
+the air grew hard to breathe, the smoke was billowing through the
+foliage of the pines, which sighed wearily and moaned in a vague fear of
+the enemy they dreaded most.
+
+A curving gully, too wide to leap, too deep to cross readily, had
+deflected the boy in his ride until he found himself to the lee of the
+fire, and the heat of it, oppressive and menacing, assailed him.
+
+Remembering the lay of the land, as he had seen it from his lookout
+point, Wilbur recalled the fact that no peak or rise was in the vicinity
+up which he could ride to gain a nearer view of the fire, and he did not
+dare to ride on and find himself on the windward side of the fire, for
+then his efforts to hold it back would be unavailing. He rode slowly
+till he came to the highest tree near. Then, dismounting, Wilbur tied
+his horse to the foot of the tree, tied him as securely as he knew how,
+for the animal was snorting in fear at being thus fastened up when the
+smoke was over his head and the smell of the fire was in his nostrils.
+Then, buckling on his climbing irons, which he had carried with him that
+morning because he had thought, if he had time, he might do a little
+repairing to his telephone line, he started up the side of the great
+tree. Up and up he went, fifty, sixty, one hundred feet, and still he
+was not at the top; another twenty feet, and there far above the ground,
+he rested at last upon a branch whence he could command an outlook upon
+the forest below.
+
+The fire was near, much nearer than he had imagined, and had he ridden
+on another ten or fifteen minutes, he might have taken his horse in
+danger. The blaze was larger than he thought. For half a mile's length,
+at least, the smoke was rising, and what was beyond he could not rightly
+see, because the branches of a large tree obscured his sight.
+
+Immediately below him, the little gully, whose curving course had turned
+him from the straight path, seemed to be the edge of the flames, which
+had not been able to back up over the water. On this side, clear down to
+the water's edge the forest floor was burning, but how wide a stretch
+had been burned over he could not see. Once on the other side of the
+gully he would be able to judge better what to do.
+
+Below his horse neighed shrilly.
+
+Looking straight down, Wilbur noted a long rolling curl of smoke steal
+swiftly along the ground a few hundred yards away, and he saw there was
+no time to lose. Springing from the branch to the trunk of the tree, he
+started to climb down. But he was over-hurried, and his feet slipped. It
+was only a foot at most, and Wilbur was not easily frightened, but he
+turned cold and sick for an instant as he looked below and saw the
+height from which he so nearly had fallen. Minutes, nay seconds, were
+precious, but he crawled back upon the branch and sat still a moment to
+steady his nerves. So startling a shock for so small a slip! He felt
+thoroughly ashamed of himself, but it had been quite a jolt.
+
+Again the horse neighed, and the fear in the cry was quite unmistakable.
+Gingerly this time, Wilbur left the kindly support of the branch and
+made his way down the trunk of the tree, heaving a sigh of profound
+thankfulness when he reached the ground. His horse looked at him with
+eyes wild with terror and every muscle atwitch. It was the work of a
+moment to unfasten the ropes and vault in the saddle, but Wilbur needed
+all his horsemanship to keep the horse from bolting. Indeed, he did
+start to run away with the boy, but Wilbur sawed him into a more normal
+pace and headed him down the gully.
+
+Although the weather had been dry, it seemed that not a few springs must
+flow above, for there was quite a stream of water, not deep, but rushing
+very swiftly, and consequently hiding the bottom of the stream. It was
+no time for looking for a ford, and so, after leading the horse down the
+bank by the bridle, Wilbur got into the saddle to put the horse across.
+He would not budge. Every muscle and nerve was tense, and the fire,
+owing to the curvature of the stream, seeming to come from the other
+side, the horse refused to move. Wilbur dug in heavily with the spurs.
+The horse would not move. Again Wilbur used the spurs. Then, snatching
+the quirt that was fastened on his saddle, the quirt the cattleman had
+given him after his ride in the cattle stampede, he laid it with all his
+will across the horse's flanks. Never before, since Wilbur had owned the
+horse, had he struck him. Frantic, the horse leaped into the stream.
+It was deeper than the boy had thought, but there was no time to go
+back, and indeed, unless it was taken at a rush, the horse would not
+climb the other bank. As they struck the water, therefore, Wilbur rose
+in his stirrups and lashed the horse a second time. He felt the horse
+plunge under him, picked him up with the reins as he stumbled on the
+loose stones in the creek bed and almost fell, and though he was
+becoming a rider, "hunted leather" by holding on to the pommel of his
+saddle, as the horse with two or three convulsive lunges climbed like a
+cat up the opposing bank, and reached the top, trembling in every limb.
+The gully was crossed.
+
+But there was no time to pause for satisfaction over the crossing of the
+little stream; that was only the beginning. It would have to be crossed
+again, higher up, as soon, as they came opposite to the fire. The quirt
+was still in his hand, and a light touch with it brought the horse to a
+full gallop. Up along the gully, with the blackened forest floor on the
+other side, rode Wilbur, until he came to the further end of the fire.
+It was almost a mile long. Right where the edge of the fire was, with
+little flames leaping among the needles and the smoke rolling, Wilbur
+headed the horse for the creek. He expected to have trouble, but the
+beast had learned his lesson, and went steadily down the creek and over
+to the other side. The return was in nowise difficult, as it was on the
+side opposite the fire that the bank was steep. Hastily Wilbur tied up
+his horse on the burned-out area, seized his shovel, and started along
+the line of the fire, beating it out with the flat of his shovel where
+the flames were small, then going to lee of it he made a firebreak by
+turning up a narrow line of earth.
+
+His hands began to blister and his lips grew so parched that he could
+endure it no longer, and snatched a moment to go back to the stream and
+lave his face and hands. He took off his coat, dipped it in the water,
+and came with it all dripping to beat out the fire with that. Foot by
+foot and yard by yard he worked his way along the line, every once in a
+while running back over the part he had already beaten to make sure that
+all was out. The afternoon was drawing on and for about a quarter of a
+mile the fire was entirely out, and for another quarter it was almost
+under control.
+
+Madly the boy worked, his breath coming in gasps, his lungs aching from
+the smoke, so that it became agony even to breathe, the ground hot
+beneath his feet, and his feet beginning to blister, as his hands had
+done an hour before, but there was no let-up. He had come to fight fire,
+and he would fight fire. Another mad hour's battle, not so successfully,
+and, contrary to the usual custom, the wind began to rise at sunset; it
+might die down in a couple of hours, but in the meantime damage might be
+done.
+
+Little by little the shadows grew deeper, and before it got entirely
+dark Wilbur tried, but vainly, to reach the end of the line, for he knew
+well that if a night wind rose and got a hold upon the remnant of the
+fire that remained all his work would go for nothing. With all his might
+he ran to the far end of the line, determining to work from that end up
+to meet the area where he had conquered. Foot by foot he gained, but no
+longer was he able to work along a straight line, the gusts of wind,
+here and there, sweeping through the trees had fanned stretches, perhaps
+only a few yards wide, but had driven them forward a hundred feet. But
+as it grew darker the wind began to fall again, though with the darkness
+the red glow of the burning needles and the flames of the burning twigs
+showed more luridly and made it seem more terrifying. Still he gained
+headway, foot after foot jealously contesting the battle with the fire
+and the wind.
+
+So short a space remaining, and though he seemed too tired and sore to
+move, still his shovel worked with never a pause, still he scraped away
+all that would burn from the path of a little line of flame. The line of
+flame grew shorter, but even as he looked a gust came along, which swept
+a tongue of fire fifty yards at a breath. Wilbur rushed after it,
+knowing the danger of these side-way fires, but before that gust had
+lulled the tongue of fire reached a little clearing which the boy had
+not known was there, only a rod or two of grass, but that browned by the
+sun and the drought until it seemed scarcely more than tinder. If it
+should touch that!
+
+Despite the fact that his shoes were dropping from his feet, the leather
+being burned through, Wilbur sped after the escaping fire. He reached
+it. But as he reached, he heard the needles rustle overhead and saw the
+branches sway. As yet the breeze had not touched the ground, but before
+two strokes with the wet coat had been made, the last of the gusts of
+the evening wind struck him. It caught the little tongue of flame Wilbur
+had so manfully striven to overtake, swept it out upon the clearing,
+and almost before the boy could realize that his chance was gone, the
+grass was a sheet of flame and the fire had entered the forest beyond in
+a dozen places.
+
+Wilbur was but a boy after all, and sick and heart-broken, he had to
+swallow several times very hard to keep from breaking down. And the
+reaction and fatigue together stunned him into inertness. For a moment
+only, then his persistent stubbornness came to the front.
+
+"That fire's got to be put out," he said aloud, "as the Chief Forester
+said, back in Washington, if it takes the whole State to do it."
+
+He walked back to his horse and started for his little cabin home. How
+he reached there, Wilbur never rightly knew. He felt like a traitor,
+leaving the fire still burning which he had tried so hard to conquer,
+but he knew he had done all he could. As he rode home, however, he saw
+through the trees another gleam, and taking out his glasses, saw in the
+distance a second fire, in no way connected with that which he had
+fought. This cheered him up greatly, for he felt that he could rightly
+call for help for two fires without any reflection on his courage or his
+grit, where he hated to tell that he had tried and failed to put out a
+blaze which perhaps an older or a stronger man might have succeeded in
+quelling. He called up the Ranger.
+
+"Rifle-Eye," he said over the 'phone as soon as he got a response,
+"there's a fire here that looks big. In fact, there's two. I've been
+after one all afternoon, and I nearly got it under, but when the wind
+rose it got away from me. And there seems to be a bigger one pretty
+close to it."
+
+"Well, son, I s'pose you're needin' help," came the reply.
+
+"All hands, I think," said the boy. "By the time I can get back there
+the two fires probably will have joined, and the blaze will be several
+miles long."
+
+"Surest thing you know," said the Ranger. "Where do you locate these
+fires?"
+
+Wilbur described with some detail the precise point where the fires were
+raging.
+
+"You'd better get back on the job," said Rifle-Eye promptly, "and try
+an' hold it down the best you can. I'll have some one there on the jump.
+We want to get it under to-night, as it's a lot easier 'n in the
+daytime."
+
+Never did the little tent look so inviting or so cozy to Wilbur as
+that moment. But he had his orders. "Get back on the job," the Ranger
+had said. He took the time to change his shoes and to snatch up some
+cold grub which was easy to get. But he ate it standing, not daring to
+sit down lest he should go to sleep--and go to sleep when he had been
+ordered out! He ate standing. Then, going down to the corral, he saddled
+Kit.
+
+He rode quietly up past the tent.
+
+"I guess," he said, "I really never did want to go to bed so much
+before, but--" he turned Kit's head to the trail.
+
+It was well for Wilbur that he had ridden the other horse that day, for
+Kit was fresh and ready. The moon had risen and was nearly full, but
+Wilbur shivered as much from nervousness and responsibility as from
+fatigue. It was useless for him to try riding at any high rate of speed
+in the uncertain light, and in any case, the boy felt that his labors
+for a half an hour more or less would not mean as much as when it had
+been a question of absolutely extinguishing a small blaze. Kit danced a
+little in the fresh night air, but Wilbur sat so heavily and listlessly
+upon her back that the mare sensed something wrong and constantly turned
+her wise face round to see.
+
+"I'm just tired, Kit," said the boy to her, "that's all. Don't get gay
+to-night; I'm not up to it."
+
+And the little mare, as though she had understood every word, settled
+down to a quiet lope down the trail. How far he had ridden or in what
+direction he was traveling Wilbur at last became entirely unconscious,
+for, utterly worn out, he had fallen asleep in the saddle, keeping his
+seat merely by instinct and owing to the gentle, easy pace of his mare.
+
+He was wakened by a heavy hand being put upon his shoulder, and rousing
+himself with a start, he found the grave, kindly eyes of the old Ranger
+gleaming on him in the moonlight.
+
+"Sleeping, son?" queried the old mountaineer.
+
+"Yes, Rifle-Eye, I guess I must have been," said the lad, "just dozed
+off. I'm dog-tired. I've been on that fire all afternoon."
+
+The Ranger looked at him keenly.
+
+"Best thing you could have done," he said. "You'll feel worse for a few
+minutes, an' then you'll find that cat-nap is just as good as a whole
+night's sleep. That is," he added, "it is for a while. What's the fire
+like? I tried to get somethin' out of Ben, but he was actin' queerly,
+an' I left him alone. But he seemed to know pretty well where it was."
+
+Wilbur tried to explain the story of the fire, but his tale soon became
+incoherent, and before they had ridden another half a mile, his story
+had died down to a few mutterings and he was asleep again. The old
+hunter rode beside him, his hand ready to catch him should he waver in
+the saddle, but Kit loped along at her easiest gait and the boy scarcely
+moved. Rifle-Eye woke him again when they left the trail and broke into
+the forest.
+
+"I reckon you better wake up, son," he said, "landin' suddenly on your
+head on a rock is some abrupt as an alarm clock."
+
+Wilbur dropped the reins to stretch himself.
+
+"I feel a lot better now," he announced, "just as good as ever. Except
+for my hands," he added ruefully, as returning wakefulness brought back
+with it the consciousness of smart and hurt, "and my feet are mighty
+sore, too. We're right near the fire, too, aren't we," he continued.
+"Gee, that was nifty sleeping nearly all the way. I guess I must have
+felt you were around, Rifle-Eye, and so I slept easily, knowing it would
+come out all right with you here."
+
+"I ain't never been famous for hypnotizin' any forest fire that I've
+heard of," said the old hunter, smiling, "but I've got a lurkin' idea
+somewhere that we'll get this headed off all right. An' in any case,
+there ain't much folks livin' in the path of the fire, if the wind keeps
+the way she is now."
+
+Wilbur thought for a moment over the lay of the land and the direction
+in which the flames were moving.
+
+"There's the mill," he said suddenly and excitedly.
+
+"Yes, son," said the old hunter. "I'd been thinkin' of that. There's the
+mill."
+
+
+[Illustration: "THAT'S ONE PAINTER LESS, ANYHOW!"
+
+Shooting the mountain lion; a frequent incident in the daily life of a
+Ranger.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: "SMOKE! AND HOW AM I GOING TO GET THERE?"
+
+Ranger forced to make a breakneck dash through wild and unknown country
+to fight forest fire.
+
+_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+IN THE MIDST OF A SEA OF FIRE
+
+
+A subdued but fiery inspiration, as of some monster breathing deeply in
+the darkness, gradually made itself heard above the voices of the night,
+and an eddying gust brought from the distance the sound of twigs and
+branches crackling as they burned. As yet the fire was not visible, save
+for the red-bronze glow seen through the trees reflected on the sky
+above. But before they reached the scene of the fire, Wilbur realized
+how different it was from the blaze he had left. Then it was a
+difficulty to be overcome: now, it was a peril to be faced.
+
+"It has run about three miles since I left it," Wilbur said. "I hope
+we're not too late."
+
+"It's never too late to try, son," replied the Ranger, "so long as there
+is a tree left unburned. There ain't anything in life that it ever gets
+too late to try over. If a thing's done, it ain't too late ever to try
+to do something else which will make up for the first, is it?"
+
+"But I failed to stop it before," said Wilbur.
+
+"Nary a fail. A fight ain't lost until it's over. An' when this little
+scrap is over the fire'll be out. You ain't had but one round with this
+fire so far."
+
+"That's certainly some fire," rejoined the boy as they turned sharply
+from a glade to the edge of a hill that looked upon the forest just
+below. It was a sight of fear. Overhead, the clouds flying before the
+wind were alternately revealing and hiding the starlit and moonlit sky
+behind, the dark and ragged wisps of storm-scud seeming to fly in panic
+from what they saw below them. The wind moaned as though enchained and
+forced to blow by some tyrannic power, instead of swaying before the
+breeze, the needles of the pines seemed to tremble and shudder in the
+blast, and dominating the whole,--somber, red, and malevolent,--the fire
+engulfed the forest floor. In the distance, where some dead timber had
+been standing, the flames had crept up the trunks of the trees, and now
+fanned by the gusts of wind, were beginning to run amid the tops.
+
+"Will it be a crown-fire, Rifle-Eye?" asked Wilbur, remembering what he
+had heard of the fearful devastation committed by a fire when once it
+secured a violent headway among the pines.
+
+"It's in the tops now," said the old hunter, pointing with his finger,
+"but I don't reckon there's enough wind yet to hold it up there. The
+worst of it is that it's not long to morning now, an' we shall lose the
+advantage o' fightin' it at night. I reckon we'd better get down and see
+what we can do."
+
+In a few minutes the hunter and Wilbur had fastened their horses and
+presently were beside the fire. To the boy's surprise the old hunter
+made no attack upon the fire itself, but, going in advance of it some
+hundred feet, with the boy's hoe, which he dragged after him like a
+plow, made a furrow in the earth almost as rapidly as a man could walk.
+This, Wilbur, with ax and shovel, widened. The old hunter never seemed
+to stop once, but, however curving and twisting his course might be, the
+boy noted that the furrow invariably occurred at the end of a stretch
+where few needles had fallen on the ground and the debris was very
+scant.
+
+After about a mile of this, the hunter curved his furrow sharply in
+toward the burned-out portion, ending his line behind the line of fire.
+He then sent Wilbur back along the line he had just traversed to insure
+that none of the fire had crossed the guard thus made. Then, starting
+about twenty feet from the curve on the fire-guard, he took another wide
+curve in front of the floor-fire, favoring the place where the needles
+lay thinnest, until he came to a ridge. Following him, Wilbur noted that
+the old woodsman had made no attempt to stop the fire on the upward
+grade, but had apparently left it to the mercy of the fire, whereas, on
+the further side of the ridge, where the fire would have to burn down,
+the old hunter had made but a very scanty fire-guard. Then Wilbur
+remembered that he had been told it was easy to stop a fire when it was
+running down a hill, and he realized that if, in the beginning, instead
+of actually endeavoring to put out the fire, he had made a wide circuit
+around it, and by utilizing those ridges, he could have held the fire to
+the spot where it began. For a moment this nearly broke him all up,
+until he remembered that he had seen another fire, and that Rifle-Eye
+had told him of a third one yet.
+
+Wilbur was working doggedly, yet in a spiritless, tired fashion, beating
+out the fire with a wet gunnysack as it reached the fire-guard of the
+old hunter's making, and very carefully putting out any spark that the
+wind drove across it, working almost without thought. But as he topped
+the ridge and came within full view of the fire that had started among
+the tops, his listlessness fell from him. Against the glow he could see
+the outline of the figure of the hunter, and he ran up to him.
+
+"It's all out, back there," he panted. "What shall we do here?"
+
+For the first time the Ranger seemed to have no answer ready. Then he
+said slowly:
+
+"I reckon we can hold this bit of it, up yonder on the mountain, but
+there's a line of fire runnin' around by the gully, and the wind's
+beginnin' a-howlin' through there. I don't reckon we can stop that. We
+may have to fall back beyond the river. We'll need axmen, now. You've
+got a good mare; ride down to Pete's mine and bring all hands. The
+government will pay them, an' they'll come. There's the dawn; it'll be
+light in half an hour. You'd better move, too."
+
+Wilbur started off at a shambling run, half wondering, as he did so, how
+it was he was able to keep up at all. But as he looked back he saw the
+old hunter, ax on shoulder, going quietly up the hill into the very
+teeth of the fire to head it off on the mountain top, if he could. He
+reached Kit and climbed into the saddle. But he was not sleepy, though
+almost too weary to sit upright. One moment the forest would be light as
+a glare from the fire reached him, the next moment it would be all the
+darker for the contrast. For a mile he rode over the blackened and
+burned forest floor, some trees still ablaze and smoking. Every step he
+took, for all he knew, might be leading him on into a fire-encircled
+place from which he would have difficulty in escaping, but on he went.
+There was no trail, he only had a vague sense of direction, and on both
+sides of him was fire. Probably fire was also in front, and if so he was
+riding into it, but he had his orders and on he must go. The mine, he
+knew, was lower down on the gully, and so roughly he followed it. Twice
+he had to force Kit to cross, but it was growing light now, so the
+little mare took the water quietly and followed the further bank.
+Suddenly he heard horses' hoofs, evidently a party, and he shouted. An
+answering shout was the response, and the horses pulled up. He touched
+Kit and in a minute or two broke through to them.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Mr. Merritt," said the boy, "I was just wondering who
+it might be."
+
+"The fire's over there," said the Supervisor. "What are you doing here?"
+
+"Rifle-Eye sent me to get the men at Pete's mine," he said.
+
+"They're here," replied the Forest Chief. "How's the fire?"
+
+"Bad," said the boy. "Rifle-Eye said he thought we would have to fall
+back beyond the river."
+
+"Don't want to," said Merritt, "there's a lot of good timber between
+here and the river."
+
+"Nothin' to it," said one of the miners. "Unless the wind shifts, it's
+an easy gamble she goes over the river and don't notice it none."
+
+The Supervisor put his horse to the gallop, followed by the party, all
+save one miner, who, familiar with the country, led the way, finding
+some trail utterly undistinguishable to the rest. Seeing the vantage
+point, as Rifle-Eye had done, he made for the crest of the hill.
+
+"Any chances?" asked the Supervisor.
+
+"I reckon not," said Rifle-Eye. "You can't hold it here; there's a blaze
+down over yonder and another below the hill."
+
+"Who set that fire?" said Merritt suddenly. Wilbur jumped. It had not
+occurred to him that the fire could have started in any other manner
+than by accident, and indeed he had not thought of its cause at all.
+
+The old Ranger looked quietly at his superior officer.
+
+"It's allers mighty hard to tell where a fire started after it's once
+got a-going," he said, "and it's harder to tell who set it a-going."
+
+"I want to stop it at the river."
+
+The old woodsman shook his head.
+
+"You ain't got much chance," he said; "I reckon at the ridge on the
+other side of the river you can hold her, but she's crept along the
+gully an' she'll just go a-whoopin' up the hill. I wouldn't waste any
+time at the river."
+
+"But there's the mill!"
+
+"We ain't no ways to blame because Peavey Jo built his mill in front of
+a fire. An', anyhow, the mill's in the middle of a clearing."
+
+The Supervisor frowned.
+
+"His mill is on National Forest land, and we ought to try and save it,"
+he said.
+
+"I'm goin' clear to the ridge," remarked the Ranger, "an' I reckon
+you-all had better, too. I ain't achin' none to see the mill burn, but
+I'd as lieve it was Peavey Jo's as any one else."
+
+"I'd like to know," Merritt repeated, "who set that fire."
+
+The Ranger made no answer, but walked off to where his horse was
+tethered and rode away. The other party without a moment's delay struck
+off to the trail leading to the mill. The distance was not great, but
+Wilbur had lost all count of time. It seemed to him that he had either
+been fighting fire or riding at high speed through luridly lighted
+forest glades for years and years, and that it would never stop.
+
+At the mill they found a wild turmoil of excitement. All the hands were
+at work, most of them wetting down the lumber, while other large piles
+which were close to the edge of the forest were being moved out of
+danger. The horses all had been taken from the stables, and the various
+sheds and buildings were being thoroughly soaked. The big mill engine
+was throbbing, lines of hose playing in every direction, for although
+the timber around the mill had been cleared as much as possible,
+negligence had been shown in permitting some undergrowth to spring up
+unchecked. Owing to the conformation of the land, too, the bottom on
+which the mill stood was smaller than customary.
+
+In the early morning light the great form of Peavey Jo seemed to assume
+giant proportions. He was here, there, and everywhere at the moment, and
+his blustering voice could be heard bellowing out orders, which, to do
+him justice, were the best possible. As soon as the Supervisor and his
+party appeared he broke out into a violent tirade against them for not
+keeping a fit watch over the forest and allowing a fire to get such a
+headway on a night when in the evening there had been so little wind,
+whereas now a gale was rising fast. But Merritt did not waste breath in
+reply; he simply ordered his men to get in and do all they could to
+insure the safety of the mill.
+
+Wilbur, who had been set at cutting out the underbrush, found that his
+strength was about played out. Once, indeed, he shouldered his ax and
+started to walk back to say that he could do no more, but before he
+reached the place where his chief was working his determination
+returned, and he decided to go back and work till he dropped right
+there. He had given up bothering about his hands and feet being so
+blistered and sore, for all such local pain was dulled by the utter
+collapse of nerve-sensation. He couldn't think clearly enough to think
+that he was feeling pain; he could not think at all. He had been told to
+cut brush and he did so as a machine, working automatically, but seeing
+nothing and hearing nothing of what was going on around him.
+
+Presently an animal premonition of fear struck him as he became
+conscious of a terrific wave of heat, and he could hear in the distance
+the roar of the flames coming closer. Raging through the resinous pine
+branches the blaze had swept fiercely around the side of the hill. As
+the boy looked up he could see it suddenly break into greater vigor as
+the up-draft on the hill fanned it to a wilder fury and made a furnace
+of the place where he had been standing with Merritt and Rifle-Eye
+scarcely more than an hour before.
+
+Meanwhile the wind drove the flames steadily onward toward the
+threatened mill. It was becoming too hot for any human being to stay
+where Wilbur was, but the boy seemed to have lost the power of thought.
+He chopped and chopped like a machine, not noticing, indeed, not being
+able to notice that he was toiling there alone. It grew hotter and
+hotter, his breath came in quick, short gasps, and each breath hurt his
+lungs cruelly as he breathed the heat into them, but he worked on as in
+a dream. Suddenly he felt his shoulder seized. It was the Supervisor,
+who twisted him round and, pointing to the little bridge across the
+river which spanned the stream just above the mill, he shouted:
+
+"Run!"
+
+But the boy's spirit was too exhausted to respond, though he got into a
+dog trot and started for the bridge. Perilous though every second's
+delay was, Merritt would not go ahead of the boy, though he could have
+outdistanced his shambling and footsore pace two to one, but kept beside
+him urging and threatening him alternately. The fire was on their heels,
+but they were in the clearing. On the bridge one of the miners was
+standing, riding the fastest horse in the party, holding, and with great
+difficulty holding, in hand the horse of the Supervisor and the boy's
+mare, Kit. Their very clothes were smoking as they reached the bridge.
+
+Suddenly, a huge, twisted tree, full of sap, which stood on the edge of
+the clearing, exploded with a crash like a cannon, and a flaming branch,
+twenty feet in length, hurtled itself over their heads and fell full on
+the further side of the bridge, barring their way. Upon the narrow
+bridge the horses reared in a sudden panic and tried to bolt, but the
+miner was an old-time cowboy, and he held them in hand. Merritt helped
+the lad into the saddle before mounting himself. But even in that moment
+the bridge began to smoke, and in less than a minute the whole structure
+would be ablaze. The miner dug his heels, spurred, into the sides of his
+horse, and the animal in fear and desperation leaped over the hissing
+branch that lay upon the bridge. The Supervisor's horse and Kit followed
+suit. As they landed on the other side, however, the head of the forest
+reined in for a moment, and looking round, shouted suddenly:
+
+"The mill!"
+
+Wilbur pulled in Kit. So far as could be seen, none of the forest fire
+had reached the mill; the sparks which had fallen upon the roof had gone
+out harmlessly, so thoroughly had the place been soaked, yet through the
+door of the mill the flames could be seen on the inside. At first Wilbur
+thought it must be some kind of a reflection. But as they watched,
+Peavey Jo rode up. He had crossed the bridge earlier, and was on the
+safe side of the river watching his mill.
+
+Suddenly, from out the door of the mill, outlined clearly against the
+fire within, came an ungainly, shambling figure. The features could not
+be seen, but the gait was unmistakable. He came running in an odd,
+loose-jointed fashion toward the bridge. But just before he reached it
+the now blazing timbers burned through and the bridge crashed into the
+stream.
+
+"It's Ben," muttered Wilbur confusedly; "I guess I've got to go back,"
+and he headed Kit for the trail.
+
+But the Supervisor leaned over and almost crushed the bones of the boy's
+hand in his restraining grip.
+
+"No need," he said, "he's all right now."
+
+For as he spoke Wilbur saw Ben leap from the bank on the portion of the
+burned bridge which had collapsed on his side of the stream. A few quick
+strokes with the ax the boy was carrying and the timbers were free, and
+crouched down upon them the boy was being carried down the stream. His
+peril was extreme, for below as well as above the fire was sweeping down
+on either side of the mill, and it was a question of minutes, almost of
+seconds, whether the bridge-raft would pass down the river before the
+fire struck or whether it would be caught.
+
+"If the wind would only lull!" ejaculated the boy.
+
+"I'll stay here till I see him burn," replied Peavey Jo grimly.
+
+But Wilbur's wish met its fulfillment, for just for the space that one
+could count ten the wind slackened, and every second meant a few yards
+of safety to the half-witted lad. Though they were risking their lives
+by staying, the three men waited, waited as still as they could for the
+fear of their horses, until the boy disappeared round a curve of the
+river. A muttered execration from Peavey Jo announced the lad's safety.
+It angered the usually calm Supervisor.
+
+"That ends you," he said. "You're licked, and you know it. Your mill's
+gone, your timber's gone, and your credit's gone. Don't let me see you
+on this forest again."
+
+"You think I do no more, eh? Me, I forget? Non! By and by you remember
+Peavey Jo. Now I ride down river. That boy, you see him? He see the sun
+rise this morning. He no see the sun set. No. Nor ever any more. I
+follow the river trail. I do not say good-by, like the old song," he
+added, scowling his fury; "you wish yes! Non! I say _au revoir_, and
+perhaps sooner than you t'ink."
+
+He wheeled and turned down the river. The Supervisor turned to the
+miner.
+
+"It's not my business to stop him," he said, "and the boy's got the
+start. He can't reach there before the fire does, now."
+
+Then, as though regretting the lull, the wind shrieked with a new and
+more vindictive fury, as though it saw its vengeance before it. Almost
+at a breath it seemed the whole body of flame appeared to lift itself to
+the skies and then fall like a devouring fury upon the forest on the
+hither side of the river below, whither Peavey Jo had ridden.
+
+In the distance the two men heard a horse scream, and they knew. But
+Wilbur did not hear.
+
+They had waited almost too long, for the wind, rising to its greatest
+height, had carried the fire above them almost to the edge of the river,
+and now there was no question about its crossing. Further delay meant to
+be hemmed in by a ring of fire. With a shout the miner slackened the
+reins and his horse leaped into a gallop, after him Merritt, and the boy
+close behind. Wilbur had ridden fast before, but never had he known
+such speed as now. The trail was clear before them to the top of the
+ridge, the fire was behind, and the wind was hurling masses of flames
+about them on every side. The horses fled with the speed of fear, and
+the Supervisor drew a breath of relief as they crossed a small ridge
+below the greater ridge whither they were bound.
+
+Once a curl of flame licked clear over their heads and ignited a tree in
+front of them, but they were past it again before it caught fair hold.
+The boy could feel Kit's flanks heaving as she drew her breath hard, and
+with the last instinct of safety he threw away everything that he
+carried, even the fire-fighting tools being released. Only another mile,
+but the grade was fearfully steep, the steeper the harder for the horses
+but the better for the fire. Kit stumbled. A little less than a mile
+left! He knew she could not do it. The mare had been kept astretch all
+night, and her heart was breaking under the strain. Any second she might
+fall.
+
+The trail curved. And round the curve, with three horses saddled and
+waiting, sat the old Ranger, facing the onrush of the fire as
+imperturbably as though his own life were in no way involved. The
+miner's horse was freshest and he reached the group first. As he did so,
+he swung out of his saddle, was on one of the three and off. The
+riderless horse, freed from the burden, followed up the trail. Merritt
+and Wilbur reached almost at the same time.
+
+"I reckon," drawled Rifle-Eye, "that's a pretty close call."
+
+"He's done," said the Supervisor, ignoring the remark. "Toss him up."
+
+With a speed that seemed almost incredible to any one accustomed to his
+leisurely movements, the old Ranger dismounted, picked Wilbur bodily out
+of the saddle, set him on one of the fresh animals, freed Kit, mounted
+himself, and was off in less than thirty seconds. For the first half
+mile it was touch and go, for the trail was steep and even the three
+fresh horses found the pace terrific. But little by little the timber
+thinned and the fire gained less hold. Then, with a burst they came into
+a clearing along the top of the ridge. The crest was black with workers,
+over two hundred men were there, and on every side was to be heard the
+sound of trees crashing to the ground, most of them by dynamite.
+
+Where the head of the trail reached the crest stood the doctor and his
+wife, the "little white lady" trembling with excitement as she watched
+the fearful race from the jaws of a fiery death. The doctor plucked
+Wilbur from his saddle as the horse rushed by him. The boy's senses were
+reeling, but before he sank into insensibility from fatigue he heard
+Merritt say:
+
+"Loyle, when you're a Ranger next year, I want you on my forest."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+[Illustration: "KEEP IT FROM SPREADING BOYS!"
+
+_Photography by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+[Illustration: "GET BUSY NOW, WHEN IT BREAKS INTO THE OPEN!"
+
+_Photography by U. S. Forest Service._]
+
+
+
+_U. S. SERVICE SERIES_
+
+By FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER
+
+Many illustrations from photographs taken in work for U. S.
+Government ^Large 12mo ^Cloth ^$1.50 per volume
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. SURVEY
+
+This story describes the thrilling adventures of members of the U. S.
+Geological Survey, graphically woven into a stirring narrative that both
+pleases and instructs. The author enjoys an intimate acquaintance with
+the chiefs of the various bureaus in Washington, and is able to obtain
+at first hand the material for his books.
+
+     "There is abundant charm and vigor in the narrative which is sure
+     to please the boy readers and will do much toward stimulating their
+     patriotism."--_Chicago News_.
+
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FORESTERS
+
+This life of a typical boy is followed in all its adventurous
+detail--the mighty representative of our country's government, though
+young in years--a youthful monarch in a vast domain of forest. Replete
+with information, alive with adventure, and inciting patriotism at every
+step.
+
+     "It is a fascinating romance of real life in our country, and will
+     prove a great pleasure and inspiration to the boys who read
+     it."--_The Continent, Chicago_.
+
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. CENSUS
+
+The taking of the census frequently involves hardship and peril,
+requiring arduous journeys by dog-team in the frozen north and by launch
+in the snake-haunted and alligator-filled Everglades of Florida, while
+the enumerator whose work lies among the dangerous criminal classes of
+the greater cities must take his life in his own hands.
+
+     "Every young man should read this story, thereby getting a clear
+     conception of conditions as they exist to-day, for such knowledge
+     will have a clean, invigorating and healthy influence on the young
+     growing and thinking mind."--_Boston Globe_.
+
+
+THE BOY WITH THE U. S. FISHERIES
+
+[Illustration: The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries]
+
+The book does not lack thrilling scenes. The far Aleutian Islands have
+witnessed more desperate sea-fighting than has occurred elsewhere since
+the days of the Spanish Buccaneers, and pirate craft, which the U. S.
+Fisheries must watch, rifle in hand, are prowling in the Behring Sea
+to-day. The fish-farms of the United States are as interesting as they
+are immense in their scope.
+
+     "One of the best books for boys of all ages, so attractively
+     written and illustrated as to fascinate the reader into staying up
+     until all hours to finish it."--_Philadelphia Despatch_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+HANDICRAFT FOR HANDY BOYS
+
+Practical Plans for Work and Play with Many Ideas for Earning Money
+
+By A. NEELY HALL
+
+Author of "The Boy Craftsman"
+
+With Nearly 600 Illustrations and Working-drawings by the Author and
+Norman P. Hall ^8vo ^Cloth ^Net, $2.00 ^Postpaid, $2.25
+
+[Illustration: Handi-Craft for Handy Boys]
+
+This book is intended for boys who want the latest ideas for making
+things, practical plans for earning money, up-to-date suggestions for
+games and sports, and novelties for home and school entertainments.
+
+The author has planned the suggestions on an economical basis, providing
+for the use of the things at hand, and many of the things which can be
+bought cheaply. Mr. Hall's books have won the confidence of parents, who
+realize that in giving them to their boys they are providing wholesome
+occupations which will encourage self-reliance and resourcefulness, and
+discourage tendencies to be extravagant.
+
+Outdoor and indoor pastimes have been given equal attention, and much of
+the work is closely allied to the studies of the modern grammar and high
+schools, as will be seen by a glance at the following list of subjects,
+which are only a few among those discussed in the 500 pages of text:
+
+     MANUAL TRAINING; EASILY-MADE FURNITURE; FITTING UP A BOY'S ROOM;
+     HOME-MADE GYMNASIUM APPARATUS; A BOY'S WIRELESS TELEGRAPH OUTFIT;
+     COASTERS AND BOB-SLEDS; MODEL AEROPLANES; PUSHMOBILES AND OTHER
+     HOME-MADE WAGONS; A CASTLE CLUBHOUSE AND HOME-MADE ARMOR.
+
+Modern ingenious work such as the above cannot fail to develop
+mechanical ability in a boy, and this book will get right next to his
+heart.
+
+     "The book is a treasure house for boys who like to work with tools
+     and have a purpose in their working."--_Springfield Union_.
+
+     "It is a capital book for boys since it encourages them in
+     wholesome, useful occupation, encourages self-reliance and
+     resourcefulness and at the same time discourages
+     extravagance."--_Brooklyn Times_.
+
+     "It is all in this book, and if anything has got away from the
+     author we do not know what it is."--_Buffalo News_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent on receipt of postpaid price by
+the publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., Boston
+
+
+
+
+THE BOY CRAFTSMAN
+
+Practical and Profitable Ideas for a Boy's Leisure Hours
+
+By A. NEELY HALL
+
+Illustrated with over 400 diagrams and working drawings ^8vo ^Price,
+net, $1.60 ^Postpaid, $1.82
+
+[Illustration: The Boy Craftsman]
+
+Every real boy wishes to design and make things, but the questions of
+materials and tools are often hard to get around. Nearly all books on
+the subject call for a greater outlay of money than is within the means
+of many boys, or their parents wish to expend in such ways. In this book
+a number of chapters give suggestions for carrying on a small business
+that will bring a boy in money with which to buy tools and materials
+necessary for making apparatus and articles described in other chapters,
+while the ideas are so practical that many an industrious boy can learn
+what he is best fitted for in his life work. No work of its class is so
+completely up-to-date or so worthy in point of thoroughness and
+avoidance of danger. The drawings are profuse and excellent, and every
+feature of the book is first-class. It tells how to make a boy's
+workshop, how to handle tools, and what can be made with them; how to
+start a printing shop and conduct an amateur newspaper, how to make
+photographs, build a log cabin, a canvas canoe, a gymnasium, a miniature
+theatre, and many other things dear to the soul of youth.
+
+     We cannot imagine a more delightful present for a boy than this
+     book.--_Churchman, N.Y._
+
+     Every boy should have this book. It's a practical book--it gets
+     right next to the boy's heart and stays there. He will have it near
+     him all the time, and on every page there is a lesson or something
+     that will stand the boy in good need. Beyond a doubt in its line
+     this is one of the cleverest books on the market.--_Providence
+     News_.
+
+     If a boy has any sort of a mechanical turn of mind, his parents
+     should see that he has this book.--_Boston Journal_.
+
+     This is a book that will do boys good.--_Buffalo Express_.
+
+     The boy who will not find this book a mine of joy and profit must
+     be queerly constituted.--_Pittsburgh Gazette_.
+
+     Will be a delight to the boy mechanic.--_Watchman, Boston_.
+
+     An admirable book to give a boy.--_Newark News_.
+
+     This Book is the best yet offered for its large number of practical
+     and profitable ideas.--_Milwaukee Free Press_.
+
+     Parents ought to know of this book.--_New York Globe_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers,
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+MR. RESPONSIBILITY, PARTNER
+
+How Bobby and Joe Achieved Success in Business
+
+First Volume of "Business Boys Series"
+
+By CLARENCE JOHNSON MESSER
+
+12mo ^Cloth ^Illustrated ^Price, Net, $1.00 ^Postpaid, $1.10
+
+[Illustration: Mr. Responsibility, Partner]
+
+This is frankly a book with a purpose, and its purpose is to teach boys
+the fundamental business customs of every-day life, and at the same time
+encourage the sound traits of character essential to commercial success
+and good citizenship. This is done by a good and interesting story of
+some live boys, whose experiences will hold the attention of every one.
+The leading spirit is pictured with a healthy boy's human qualities to
+be trained, and impulses to be overcome. A companionable and sensible
+father aids him judiciously, and leaves success to be worked out on
+natural lines. All the stage effects of the cheaper kinds of boys' books
+are blissfully absent; there are no villains plotting against the
+upright, no nations saved by the precocious intelligence of youth, and
+no impossible adventure or accomplishment--just the problems before
+average boys, and that can be solved as these boys solve them if "Mr.
+Responsibility" is recognized as a partner in all undertakings, and one
+learns to see and grasp his opportunities. A book that any boy would
+like, and that every boy ought to have.
+
+     "It is an inspiring book to any boy who wants to learn to be a good
+     business man."--_Buffalo News_.
+
+     "Entertaining, instructive, and just such a book as boys will
+     love."--_Portland, Me., Press_.
+
+     "For the boys still young enough to revel in "juvenile stories" MR.
+     RESPONSIBILITY is about as good as is to be found."--_San Francisco
+     Town Talk_.
+
+     "The story is one that boys will enjoy and that parents can safely
+     put in their hands."--_Lowell Courier Citizen_.
+
+     "A wholesome, informative, worth-while boy's book."--_N. Y. Press_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_For sale by all booksellers or sent on receipt of postpaid price by the
+publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Boy With the U. S. Foresters, by
+Francis Rolt-Wheeler
+
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