WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 



No. 9, Chiefly Concerning Horses 



By CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, Supervisor Sierra National Forest 



NCE upon a time a 

 supervisor had a 

 brilliant idea ; it was 

 in the holiday sea- 

 son, and in Land 

 Office days. He was 

 so beautifully young 

 that he looked on all 

 those who sat upon 

 far-off thrones o f 

 authority as merely 

 mortal like himself, and as just as 

 willing to take a josh. So he put in 

 a regular requisition for half a dozen 

 centaurs "as an experiment of great 

 scientific importance to American for- 

 estry." He further specified that he 

 wanted "two white ones, two black, 

 and two bald-face sorrels, all warranted 

 sound in wind and limb." 



I have heard it whispered, where in- 

 spectors congregate, that this super- 

 visor very nearly lost his position. His 

 request was not considered at all funny ; 

 in fact, one dignified official termed it 

 "impudence." My friend got back from 

 the Great Office the proper form, redly 

 stamped "Not in Stock." "No date can 

 be set for the delivery of these articles." 

 There the incident closed without a 

 tragedy. 



It is just as well, perhaps, that no 

 centaurs were to be had, because their 

 rating must have troubled the civil serv- 

 ice, and their social standing at our 

 annual meetings would have been a 

 problem of fascinating complexity. Btit 

 how convenient and how effective a 

 few intelligent centaurs of the classic 

 Chironian type could be made up here 

 in Sierra every day in the year. 



(I do not mean the gaudy brand of 

 patent-medicine poster centaurs ; I 

 mean, of course, those wonderful crea- 

 tures of whom Maurice Guerin wrote.) 



Can it be that none of these mighty 

 and splendid centaurs are left alive in 

 some far-off and mystic Thibetan val- 

 ley of moonlight and forests to be per- 

 suaded forth by some ardent collector 

 from the Department of Agriculture? 

 Professor Hansen has done so well 

 finding new Turkestan alfalfas that 

 perhaps he might be sent after centaurs. 



But, in truth, the ranger is the near- 

 est that we are likely to get to those 

 pre-historic centaurs, for very often he 

 and his horse are almost one, and the 

 horse seems the most essential end of 

 the combination. I have no doubt that 

 many of our boys figure more carefully 

 on having enough hay and grain for 

 their horses than they do on buying 

 warm winter flannels for themselves. 

 A very considerable part of our time 

 is unavoidably devoted to saddle-horses, 

 "packs," outfits, stables, pastures, and 

 all that these things imply, include and 

 require. 



In the towns and valleys men too 

 often buy horses just as they buy pota- 

 toes — for unromantic use. Up here in 

 the mountains men buy more or less of 

 poetry and companionship in even the 

 most shag-bark Indian pony. 



Once I noticed at a camp that a cer- 

 tain new ranger was distinctly given 

 the cold shoulder by all the rest. He 

 stood up under it with surprised and 

 bewildered indignation. Of course, in 

 such cases, one can't ask what the trou- 

 ble is, but I rather thought he had made 

 peppery remarks about camp life. In a 

 little while, when we rode together, I 

 saw exactly the reason ; he had several 

 beastly little ways of being mean to his 

 horse, and this it was which had rubbed 

 the rangers the wrong way. 



So I took especial pleasure in telling 

 him how it looked to others, and he 



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