RANGER YOUNG WILD, ON THE FIRE LINE 

 OR LARIAT LAURA'S FATAL FORM 



By E. T. Allen 



Editorial Note — The human interest features in the Hfe of the Forest Ranger on the 

 National Forests have been presented at various times in American Forestry, but always 

 in serious vein. The men who guard the nation's forest resources, however, lighten their 

 responsibilities at times with a humor appropriate to their duties and environment. It is in 

 order to present this spirit of burlesque that this fanciful story written six years ago is 

 published. It does not apply now if it ever did, but represents the general conception of 

 government bureau requirements of paper reports, which fortunately in the Forest Service 

 are now less important than results. 



IT was night, black night, in the for- 

 est. Not a leaf stirred. Not a 

 cougar howled. No sound broke 

 the stillness but the regular breath- 

 ing of Young Wild, the Forest Ranger, 

 who lay beside the dead embers of the 

 fire over which he had copked his fru- 

 gal evening meal of chili and beans. 



Su<t<lenly the telephone bell rang ! 



Young Wild always carried a port- 

 able wireless telephone and, before 

 turning in on this historic evening, had 

 fixed the coherer to the top-bud of a 

 noble sugar pine some eight hundred 

 and fifty feet high, under which he had 

 pitched his simple camp. 



"Hello ! Is this the Ranger. District 

 Ten?" 



"I am here, fear not," replied Wild. 



"Death and destruction are advanc- 

 ing northward up the canyon of the 

 Mokelumne in the shape of a wall of 

 flame three miles wide," said the voice 

 in the receiver. 



"Leave all to me," said Young Wild. 

 For Wild was a noi)le Ranger. He had 

 read his Use Book and passed a starch- 

 ing examination along thoroughly prac- 

 tical lines. What had he to fear? 



Just then a loud report was heard. 



Wild ran for his horse. 



It was gone ! 



"Black Heart, the Nester!" cried 

 Wild. "I expected no less from such a 

 miscreant." 



He had no other horse. Only yester- 

 day he had weighed the latest consign- 

 ment of blank forms received from 

 Washington for his daily reports and, 

 finding them to weigh eleven hundred 

 and one (1,101) poimds. he had traded 



496 



his ]:)eerless Perjured Bride, the famous 

 pinto tilly whose pink nostrils had nuz- 

 zled the posts of every saloon in his dis- 

 trict, for a large traction engine. 



The report he had just heard was the 

 engine blowing up. 



Only for a moment did Young Wild 

 hesitate. In a bound, or less, he reached 

 the telephone and in secret code called 

 up the motmtain lair of Lariat Laura, 

 the Dare Devil Queen of the Sierras. 

 Our dashing young hero and this beati- 

 tiful girl had been great chums along 

 the Sausalito water front (read "Bleed- 

 ing Hearts and Order Twelve, or How 

 Lariat Laura Br ike the Gin Famine," 

 10 cents at all newsstands) and always 

 stood together. 



"Is that you, Laura?" he inquired 

 breathlessly. 



"No, I'm asleep," the crafty girl re- 

 plied. She .did not recognize him with- 

 out his breath and feared some diaboli- 

 cal trap. 



Wild made a noise like an alarm 

 clock. Laura woke up. 



"Hasten to my assistance !" Wild 



cried. "I am about to be devoured 

 by * * * " 



At that instant the line melted in two. 



Wild entered this fact in nineteen 

 card records and signed six duplicates 

 of each for transmission to the Office of 

 Operation. 



But this delay saved his life. 



Lariat lost no time. 



Knowing the intrepid character of 

 her dashing young lover, she was cer- 

 tain no ordinary danger could have 

 caused him to appeal to a tender young 

 female for jirotcction. She immediate- 



