Uncle Sam's Forests
NCE we reached a certain ranger station after sundown. It was the end of a long trail day, our horses were tired, we were fagged, and darkness was hard upon us. The only good grass in sight was the forty-acre fenced pasture surrounding the Forest Service cabin. So opening the gate we entered the forbidden land, unsaddled, and turned the horses lose.
Just as we had the fire started and the coffee boiling, up came the ranger, with a star on his shirt and an air of outraged authority about him. "You can't make camp here," said he. My partner had a legal turn of mind, and came back quickly with the observation that we had already done so.
"Well, you'll have to unmake it, then," continued Uncle Sam's representative. "This here isn't for campers; it's reserved for the Service."
And thereafter, with considerable bluntness, he told us to "git," and quickly. Our arguments were in vain. The fact that it was dark, that we were played out, that there was no other horse feed near, availed not at all. With him it was no case for logic. Like a good and faithful servant he always came back to the beginning with the statement, "Them's the rules and I gotter enforce 'em."
But in the meantime the coffee boiled and the horses wandered farther from us. The ranger became exasperated.
"You're trespassing," he expostulated. "This is private property and——"
"Whose property?" My partner hit the nail on the head. But the ranger didn't see the rocks ahead.
"Property of the Forest Service, of course," said he.
"And who is the Forest Service?"
"Why, it's—it's—" the ranger stuttered a bit, seeking adequate explanation. "It's the Government, of course."
The ranger swelled with pride—after all, hadn't he demonstrated himself the representative of our omnipotent nation? But pride precedeth falls.
"And who is the Government?" persisted my partner, as he poured his cup full of coffee from the battered pot.
But before an Armageddon of violence was reached I interrupted and dispelled the threatened storm. For as it happened we were privileged characters, of a sort, and our note from the District Supervisor extending the special courtesies of the Service turned the rising wrath of our ranger into the essence of hospitality. We never again heard of the rules from him.
However, my friend had expressed a monumental conclusion. Our pasture was the property of the Forest Service, the Service was a part of the Government, and the Government is of and for the people—us common people. Therefore that pasture was ours—Q.E.D.! Of course the principle doesn't work out in practice, because the Service, in the proper conduct of its affairs, must have strict property rights like any other organization or individual. But, broadly speaking, that is the truth of the matter. And in justice to the new spirit of the Forest Service, and the aims and methods of its employees of to-day, it is well to state that the ranger in question was of the old school, which regarded its reserves as its own sacred property and operated somewhat on the antedated motto of some railroads of the past, "The public be damned."
For whatever one's feeling regarding the economic phase of national forests, from the casual camper's standpoint there is no doubt that their conduct to-day is admirable. Viewed from this angle they are great playgrounds, and as in Oregon alone the national forests embrace an astounding total of more than sixteen million acres, their importance to the recreationist is evident. On the doors of the ranger stations are signs which read: "Property of the United States. For the use of officers of the Forest Service." Leaving off the trespass warning which concludes the text of the cloth notices, one might change the other sentence thus: "For the use of whomever enjoys out-of-doors"; then you would have the meaning of the Western forest reserves in a nutshell, so far as campers are concerned.
If you are a settler who unsuccessfully seeks "elimination" of a homestead on the ground that it is "more valuable for agricultural purposes than for timber," or a timber speculator, or even a mill owner desirous of cheap logs, your enthusiasm for "conservation" may be a negligible quantity. Certainly if you are a vote-seeker you will damn it whenever opportunity affords, for that is politically fashionable, and always safe—unlike woman suffrage, prohibition, and tariff questions; conservation is an architectural phenomenon, for it is a fence with only one side in a West whose people consider themselves robbed of their heritage of natural wealth, which most of them are all for turning into dollars as fast as logging-roads and band-saws can contrive. "To-day for to-day; let the morrow care for itself," they say. But if you are merely a foolish camper, with a secret dread of the time when the old earth will be divested totally of her timber covering, you may actually be grateful for the manner in which the reserves are administered. Your playground is cared for and guarded and improved. Maps, often accurate, are obtainable. The trails are well blazed and well kept, and new trails and roads are constantly being installed for the double purpose of making the forests more accessible to the public and to simplify fire fighting.
For above all, of course, the great good work is the ceaseless battle against fire—now far more one of prevention than of extinction. Visible and arresting signs of the fire-war are encountered everywhere—notices warning against the risks and losses of forest fires, exhortations on the criminal dangers of leaving camp-fires burning, reminders to the smokers about forgotten cigarettes. These, and a score more, stare the trail follower in the face at intervals upon his way, until hostility to the plundering fire god is so thoroughly drummed home as to become a sort of second nature.
The more frequented trails, as I have said, are plastered with fire warning signs. Once one of them all but broke up a contented camping trip, in this wise:
After a two days' ride in a driving rain storm and a night in wet blankets, we came to a deserted ranger station, and in it found a welcome refuge. Our blankets spread in a dry corner, we set to work upon a fire, just beyond the overhang of what had once been a porch roof.
That fire was a task! If we were soaked, the woods were wetter still, and everything normally inflammable seemed as water-logged as a dishrag. However, Mac fared forth with his double-bitted axe, and in due course secured some near-dry chips from the sheltered side of a dead tree. However, the chips showed no overweening desire to ignite, despite Mac's most tender efforts. The rain beat on his face, mud plastered his knees, water from the shake roof trickled down his neck, and matches and temper approached exhaustion while he struggled coaxingly with the stubborn fire god.
"Packing Up" at a Deserted Ranger Station
Using the Forest Fire Telephone at a Ranger Station
On a tree just behind the would-be fire maker was a Forest Service sign, whose large letters read: "Beware of Setting Fires!" Glancing up from Mac at his sodden task to that sign a latent sense of humor somewhere within my damp person overbalanced discretion, and I burst into uproarious laughter.
Somehow Mac took my levity quite to heart.
"Well," said he—or something with the same number of letters—"if you think you can make this dodgasted fire burn better'n I can, come out and try—the water's fine."
There were embellishments, too, not fit to print in a modest book, regarding a loafer who would hang back in the dry places while the only intelligent member of the party, etc. But when he saw the sign even irate Mac had to laugh, too.
"Whoever posted that warning," said he, "ought to be compelled to come in September and try to set a fire hereabout! He'll get a medal for incendiarism if he succeeds!"
At all events the National Forests occupy an all-important place in the Pacific Playland, if mountains and woods figure at all in your itinerary. The Californian Sierras are in the "reserves," as are the Cascades and much of the coast mountains of Oregon and Washington. There are countless other outing places in the three States, of course, for many prefer the automobile to the pack-horse, and the beach to the highlands, and for such, the road maps of the automobile associations and the shore line of the Pacific open an endless field of pleasure.
In hunting and fishing, too, the sportsman need not confine himself to the mountain regions, and whether the hunter use gun or camera there are regions throughout the three States where his rewards for patient diligence will be ample. Ducks and geese abound, from the Sacramento marshes to the sloughs of the Columbia and the myriad shooting grounds of Puget Sound, and there are deer and bear and occasionally a cougar or cat scattered through the hills. Coyotes roam the sagebrush plains, devastating neighbors to the sage hens and rabbits, grouse lurk in the timbered foothills, and gay Chinese pheasants are prospering—where they have been "planted" by the State game authorities.
With all the rivers, and all the lakes, of the three States to choose from, it would be folly to list any special ones of marked piscatorial virtue, even if one were able where superlatives are appropriate in describing so many. Suffice to say that from actual experience I know that there are streams in the Sierras, in the Oregon Cascades, and in the Olympics of Washington whose very contemplation would make Izaak Walton long for reincarnation. Back East—in New Brunswick and Cape Breton, for instance—one often catches as many and as large trout, and sometimes more and larger, than in the Western streams. But after all, the fish are a small part of the fishing. The tame sameness of the surroundings of the down-east waters compares ill with the theatrical bigness and infinite variety of setting of most of the Western rivers, where half the delight is the recurring glimpses of snowy peaks and the majestic companionship of colossal trees.
Beside a little lake not far from the summit of the Cascades is a small cabin. It is squatty in appearance and strongly constructed, but has neither the earmarks of a ranger's station nor of a trapper's winter home. A few yards away, where a little creek enters the lake, a rather elaborate dam adds to the mystery.
"It's a fish station," explained Mac cryptically.
Later I heard arrangements made for the transportation of half a ton of grub to the cabin—a matter of fifty miles of wagon haul, twelve by pack-horse, and five by boat. The supplies were to be brought in before the snows came in the Fall, and buried beside the cabin so that the canned stuff and the potatoes would not freeze. Then the occupants who were to eat the rations would put in their appearance about April 1st, when the trails were hidden beneath many feet of snow and packing would be nearly an impossibility.
For the cabin represented the first link in the work of trout propagation, as conducted by the State Fish and Game Commission. Two experts go to it when the first spring thaws attack the drifts and the little creek grows restless beneath its winter quilt of snow and ice. The first year they waited too long, and when they came and built their dam the female fish already had gone up the creek to lay their eggs. But this year they dared the rear-guard of winter, and arrived in time to trap hundreds of trout fat with roe. For six weeks they labor collecting the eggs which later are sent to the State hatchery at Bonneville to be hatched. Later the fingerlings are distributed where most needed throughout Oregon.
The fisherman who pays his license fee often enough knows next to nothing of the good work that is being done for him by those who aim not only to keep the streams from being "fished out," but also to improve the fishing. This cabin by the lakeside represents the start of the work, and bitter hard work some of it is, too.
An Oregon trout stream
From a photograph by Raymond, Moro, Ore.
The fish car, "Rainbow," with its load of cans filled with trout fry, reaches the railroad point selected for distribution. There the local warden has gathered a legion of volunteer automobiles in which the cans are rushed to the streams and lakes near by and their contents planted. That is the easy simple "planting." The difficulties come when the streams or lakes are scores of miles from a railway or even a road, and the carrying must be done by pack-train. In 1912 and 1913, for instance, one hundred and sixteen lakes scattered throughout the Cascade Mountains were stocked; that is, waters suitable for trout culture but hitherto without fish were prepared for the fisherman of next summer, and an ever-increasing number of desirable fishing places provided. And in the cases numbered here, every can of fry used was carried many miles on pack-horses; one trip occupied eight days, and even then, thanks to many changes of water, out of ten thousand fry only fifty died!
Hunting is an out-of-door pursuit all to itself. The man who at home would lift a beetle from his garden walk rather than crush it becomes an ardent murderer when he camps. Probably there are no adequate apologies. And yet we all get the fever at some time or another, and taste the fascination of pitting our wits and woodcraft against the native cunning of the wild thing we stalk. Your ethical friend—who probably is a vegetarian to boot!—here at once objects. He says the contest is cruelly uneven; that the odds of a high-powered rifle spoil the argument. Which, in a way, is quite true. But Heaven knows we would never taste venison or have bear rugs before our den fires if their capture was left to our naked hands!
However, this is dangerous ground, and most of us brush past it when vacation time comes, and take out our hunting license as automatically as we make up our order for corn-meal and bacon. From our rods we expect full creels, and hope for game from the guns.
"Any luck?"
That is the first question when you get home, and a negative answer implies defeat. Unless you get something, be prepared for the I-thought-as-much expression when your friend sympathizes with you. An incentive and a temptation it is—some of the worst of us and some of the best of us have nearly fallen (nearly, I say) and offered gold to a small boy with the basket which was full of fish when ours was empty. And the game laws—there, in truth, is where sportsmanship at times is forced into tight corners!
We had hunted deer for two solid, leg-wearying days. But the woods were very dry, and the deer heard us long before we saw them, except for a doe or two, uncannily aware of the safety of their sex. On the morrow we hit the homeward trail, and were disconsolate at the prospect of a venisonless return.
Crackle!
Something moved in the thicket below me. Another stir and the "something" resolved itself into a deer. Up came the light carbine—the weapon par excellence for saddle trips—while I sighted across seventy yards of sunshine at the brown beast moving gracefully about, nipping at hanging moss and oblivious of danger.
But the carbine did not speak. Conscience and familiarity with the game laws battled for some thirty seconds with inclination and desire for venison. Then conscience won, and the doe continued her dainty feeding, undisturbed.
In days gone by, our copy-book mottoes told us that "Virtue is its own reward." As a general thing such automatic recompense is unsatisfactory, so when really first-class examples of more tangible returns for virtue arise, they deserve recording. And this was one of them. For no sooner had I formed the good resolve, and acted on it, venison or no venison, than there came another soft crack-crackle of dry twigs, and a second brown animal appeared.
Bang!
The first shot hit just abaft the shoulder and the fine buck lay dead before he knew his plight.
And if that was not immediate reward for virtue, I defy explanation!
