Girl Scouts in Arizona and New Mexico

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

The scouts felt like applauding this polite rebuke to the Tenderfoot’s zest for hunting, but they knew enough to hide their sentiments.

“How about mountain lions and wildcats? I heard that the Service hailed those who would help to clean them out of these forests in order to preserve the deer and harmless wild creatures. I read last winter that as many as a dozen bears were caught in a few weeks on one ranch alone out here. That doesn’t look much like protection,” returned Burt.

“Oh, the destructive beasts, you meant! That is all right, but killing of deer, or wild game birds, for the sake of hunting is quite another thing,” said the Ranger.

Conversation during the trip from Las Vegas to the next camp that day was like a game of tennis—the ball was batted back and forth between the players: the men on the one side and the scouts on the other. But this conversational ball was made of such stuff as would educate and inform the girls so that they would the better understand and appreciate the country and conditions they visited.

At noon, the first day out from Las Vegas, they camped on Bernal Creek and the scouts listened to Sanderson talk, thus they learned that in the 750,000 acres of land in the Pecos Forest the pine trees stand from eighty to a hundred and fifty feet in height; that the Rangers have to protect the young saplings; and harrow the ground where quantities of pine are cut and removed—this to keep a new growth coming on to replace the trees taken out.

That night they camped on the Pecos River, near Blanchard. The next day, having followed the remarkable trail along the Pecos River and passing many farms which dotted the land, the scout party climbed to an elevation of 8,000 feet, where they found the little adobe town of Pecos. It looks more like an ancient village in Spain than an American settlement in the twentieth century; the people living in the simplest manner and dressing in picturesque ways: women in full, short skirts, with gay shawls over their heads or upon their shoulders; children in red or blue calicos; men with sombreros, loose shirts and bandannas around their swarthy necks; goats grazing everywhere; old houses, bright flowers, red sand—all served to paint a picture for the girls.

Here, quite unexpectedly, Sanderson met a Ranger from the Government Lookout at Panchuelo. He had been at Glorieta to restock the larder from the meager supply to be had from the grocer. To the surprise of the Easterners they heard from him that fresh meat could be had there at prices which were current thirty and forty years ago—before the great meat trusts choked the individual butcher out of business.

“Mr. Gilroy,” said Sanderson, “I advised Mr. Burt that we go forward to Santa Fé to get important papers he will need. My friend here says he will escort you up the forest trail; he knows the country better than I, and he is a good camp-cook.”

As this was a practical suggestion, it was agreed that the scouts were to go with Ranger Johnson, while Sanderson and Burt, after attending to some publicity work in Santa Fé for the Pueblo Indians, would join the scouts at Taos Pueblo. Thus the two young men said good-by and departed.

Ranger Johnson suggested the Apache Inn, at Valley Ranch, where he knew the tourists could be entertained for that night. “But,” said the Ranger, “before we leave for Valley Ranch, Mr. Gilroy, you may wish to escort the scouts about the town.”