I Married a Ranger

by Dama Margaret Smith

"Washington sent us a German scientist. We loved that nation just about that time, and on his arrival diplomatic relations were badly strained. He was too fat and soft to use snowshoes or skis, so we loaded him on a light truck and started for the buffalo farm. We stalled time and again, and he sat in lordly indifference while we pushed and shoveled out. We seemed hopelessly anchored in one drift, and from his perch where he sat swaddled up like a mummy came his 'Vy don't you carry a portable telephone so ve couldt hook it over the vires and call for them to come and pull us oudt?' One of the rangers replied, 'It would be nice for us to telephone ourselves to please pull us oudt. We are the them that does the pulling around here.'

"The old boy mumbled and sputtered but rolled out and put a husky shoulder to the wheel, and we went on our way rejoicing. He won our respect at the buffalo farm for he soon discovered the germ that was killing our charges, and he prepared a serum with which we vaccinated the entire herd."

"Wow!" Colonel White exclaimed. "I think I'd rather fight Moros than vaccinate buffalo." He, too, had spent years in foreign warfare; his experiences are graphically told in Bullets and Bolos.

While we heard about the buffalo, one of the rangers left the room. He came back presently, and White Mountain said to me: "Don't you want to see your Christmas present?"

I looked across at my proud new riding-boots, with their fancy stitching, and funny high heels just like those the rangers wore. "I'm crazy about them," I said.

But the whole bunch were laughing. White Mountain led me to the door, and there I had my first glimpse of Tar Baby! He was a four-year-old horse that had spent those years running wild on the range. A few months before he had been captured and partly tamed. But he was hard-mouthed, and stiff-necked and hell-bent on having his own way about things. I didn't know all that when I saw him this Christmas Day. To me he was perfect. He was round and fat, shiny black, with a white star in his forehead, and four white feet. One eye was blue, and the other one the nicest, softest, kindest brown! He was just that kind of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde horse, too! He was fitted out with a new saddle, a gaudy Navajo saddle blanket, and a bridle with silver inlaid fittings. The spade bit was necessary. I found that out later, also.

I would have stood there speechless with admiration the rest of the day, but the others reminded me it was time to light the big tree we had planned for the children in the Park.

The rangers had brought a slender fir into the Information Room and we had it trimmed within an inch of its life. Cranberries and popcorn ropes festooned its branches, and again Montgomery Ward and Company's catalogue had been searched for treasures to load it with. Every child in the Park, regardless of race or color, was remembered. Little brown brothers, whose Filipino mothers worked in the laundry, found themselves possessors of strange toys; Navajo babies and Hopi cupids from the Hopi House were well supplied. One small Hopi lass wailed loudly at the look of the flaxen-haired doll that fell to her lot. She was afraid to hold it—she wouldn't let anybody else touch it—so she stood it in a corner and squalled at it from a safe distance. When the party was over, an older sister had to carry it for her. I suspect she much preferred her native dolls.

After the tree was bare, we all went down to the Fred Harvey Recreation Room and danced the rest of the evening away.

I could hardly wait for morning to go for a ride on Tar Baby. Ranger West brought him down to the house to saddle him. While I dressed up in my new boots I overheard the conversation between the ranger and the horse. It was a rather one-sided talk, but quite interesting.