The Boy With the U. S. Foresters

by Francis Rolt-Wheeler

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."