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.