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 régime, 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?"
MEASURING A FAIR-SIZED TREE.
Lumberman on the scene of felling operations checking up a timber sale.
Photograph by U. S. Forest Service.
RUNNING A TELEPHONE LINK.
RUNNING A TELEPHONE LINK.
Using the poles planted by Nature for annihilating space in sparsely settled regions.
Photographs by U. S. Forest Service.