STORIES TOLD IN RANGER CAMPS 



175 



there an' made slathers of hard cider ; 

 then the men went and held an election 

 every year — gave their weapons to the 

 women, an' got awful drunk. Some- 

 times the whole tribe went away with 

 thousands of the splendid horses an' 

 lots more they took from the Spaniards, 

 away back to valleys of the Andes. 

 When a brave rode out, his servants 

 kept bringin' on a string of fresh 

 horses, an' they changed saddles every 

 hour, goin' like the wind, always travel- 

 in' to war, or comin' home. 



"There never were such men any- 

 where else, such giants of fellows, fear- 

 less, and a terror to their foes. The soap 

 peddler said they had first-class chiefs, 

 an' they built up a kind of republic of 

 their own an' drew a line between their 

 land and that of the Spaniards. But at 

 last, he says, the Spaniards come down 

 very still an' quiet an' with an' army, 

 took the country, built a city they 

 named Valdivia, an' began to mine 

 for gold. Then down from the high 

 mountain valleys rode these horsemen, 

 thousands of 'em, and they tore the 

 settlement all to pieces. Then they 

 took the chief Spaniard an' set him 

 down on a chair, an' promised him 

 plenty of gold, since that was what he 

 seemed to want. Then they melted a 

 heap of gold and poured it, all hot, down 

 his throat — and went back to their 

 Andes." 



"That's great!" said one ranger. 

 "How much of that is true?" 



"A whole lot of it," I said, coming 

 to the rescue of the story-teller. "The 

 Araucarians of Chili were a wonderful 

 and a heroic race of men before the 

 vices of the whites conquered them. 

 They were the Cossacks of earlier South 

 America as far as horsemanship went, 

 and nobody knows how much trouble 

 they gave the successors of Pizarro. 

 They really 'came into camp' to the 

 Chilians about 1870." 



"Guess I'll try to get an exchange 

 into some forest down there in Chili," 

 said one ranger. 



"You will have to have a new lan- 

 guage and a new religion, and otherwise 

 hit a new gait altogether. Besides, 

 these things happened a long time ago. 



Caupolion, the chief, who once traveled 

 with his ten wives and his 500 picked 

 horses, and who sat at the head of the 

 tribe when they caroused on the Island 

 of Crab-Apples, was dust, with all his 

 belongings, ages ago ; his land is 

 changed into farms and fields, and I 

 guess some of his descendants are plow- 

 ing there now." 



"Seems to me very often when I 

 hear about things," said another ranger, 

 "as if I had come into the world some 

 too late. It would bust me up if I let 

 it strike in deep." 



"Onc't I took out a party of nice fel- 

 lows from Philadelphia," volunteered 

 a third retailer of old stories, "and they 

 had a book they read out loud in camp. 

 It was all about a great, fine, expensive 

 French cardinal named Rishloo. He 

 was mighty good to his friends and 

 mighty stiff with his enemies. Then 

 there was a green young feller from the 

 country that had a rusty old sword and 

 rode a buttercup-colored horse. He 

 fought everybody that poked fun at 

 him. Pretty soon he was chums with 

 the best bunch of fighters in France and 

 up against old Rishloo who bossed 

 France about then." 



"What was the king doing?" 



"None of them kings counted for any- 

 thing. But I wish I could run across 

 that book again. I wish some fellow 

 who knew how to read out loud in good 

 shape could read that thing to our camp 

 next winter." 



"It's in the ranger library," said 

 another. "It's The Three Musketeers. 

 One of the big guns from Washington 

 wrote his name and gave it to the 

 boys." 



"Is the fightin' kid that rode the 

 buttercup-colored horse in it?" 



"Sure." 



"Well, you show it to me next time 

 we hit headquarters. That's the sort of 

 history I like. None of your old Turk 

 kidnappers, nor your Dago cider drink- 

 ers. I don't call that no novel. That 

 book just writes down things exactly 

 as they happened to real live people." 



"They happened pretty durn quick 

 and frequent for history." 



