766 



CONSERVATION 



That night, as the ranger lay in his 

 blankets in front of the campfire, my 

 thoughts were busy with the relations 

 of himself and of others like him to 

 each other and to the Service. What 

 quiet, calm, yet undisciplined natures 

 they had ! With what straight sim- 

 plicity they went forward to fateful con- 

 clusions. How immense the responsi- 

 bility upon the ofificers of the forests to 

 train, control, restrain, direct these 

 hereditary forces ! And I remember 

 the dictum of an old supervisor a year 

 or two earlier when he said to me? "If 

 I told that ranger to shoot a man, in 

 the name of the Government, and his 

 reason approved, he would kill him, and 

 never lose a minute's sleep over it. But 

 if his reason did not approve, he would 

 resign and leave the camp without stop- 

 ping for dinner" (a serious proposi- 

 tion out West ; to leave that way is like 



refusing to take salt in the tent of an 

 Arab). 



Such was the bringing up of some 

 of the older types of forest rangers 

 before the days of reports and business 

 details of timber sales, grazing permits, 

 and land matters. They did their work, 

 and fulfilled themselves, under very 

 hard conditions. Their virtues have 

 been handed on down the line, and 

 their successors, with much better edu- 

 cations and fuller comprehension of for- 

 est problems, are still valuable in the 

 main according to the degree in which, 

 like the rangers of 1891-1903, they 

 speak and live the truth as it is revealed 

 to them. Honesty, fidelity, capacity 

 for hard work, and belief in the game 

 we are playing, are now, no less than in 

 pioneer days, the requisites, the im- 

 perative demands of the Service upon 

 the ranger. 



