WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 



479 



horse ran that no one dared to run in ; 

 it kept on slashing the horse, tore him 

 ahnost to pieces, cut off one foot, and 

 he fell over. 



"My horse whinnied as I came up, 

 asked me to help him, held up his leg; 

 I just pulled my gun and shot him." 



Thus one gets both comedy and trag- 

 edy in these simple tales of rangers 

 and their horses. In every story up 

 here, one is apt to find that a horse 

 really belongs somewhere. I have seen 

 two old friends drop silently apart for 

 a time, and then, slowly, painfully come 

 together again. It is some colt which 

 both wanted, or a remark about horses, 



companion in hard places a faithful 

 horse can be. Read Kipling's "East 

 and West" ballad ; read of great Roland 

 in B'rowning's poem, and the mighty 

 black charger in "Lady Geraldine's 

 Courtship." Think, too, of that desert 

 "stallion shod with fire," in Bayard 

 Taylor's immortal love song. And, of 

 course, you remember John Brent, and 

 his Don Fulano, storming on and on 

 through the Rockies to save life and 

 honor. 



Give us time, up here in these great 

 mountains, and perhaps facts shall 

 make such brave tales as these about 

 our horses and our men, and we, too, 



Rangers Ready to Start Out 



Stupidly repeated, which has made the 

 trouble. Then, seeing this rending of 

 old ties, you can understand the earlier 

 races, the tribes of forest-men, who 

 had only swords and horses. You re- 

 member legends of tall, golden-haired 

 youths who fought to the death for 

 some splendid warrior-steed ! You re- 

 member how young Sigurd went to the 

 Meads of Gripir for Grayfell, the Gift 

 of Odin. Up here, in our mountains, 

 we love those ancient tales of men of 

 weapons, and of horses, when the world 

 was new and the stars were near. 



Literature and history are crowded 

 with stories that illustrate how good a 



shall become legends and inspirations. 

 It may happen that some ranger's 

 wife, or daughter, or sweetheart, will 

 take an unbroken colt from the pasture, 

 and ride him at full speed up the pass, 

 all fearless, in black midnight, to carry 

 some fateful message, to gather men 

 to stop a forest fire, to follow some 

 criminal, to save some life. Here ani 

 there, as the years pass, in Oregon, or 

 Arizona, or California, or elsewhere, 

 all along our chain of forests, men's 

 horses will fall under them, worn out 

 or heart-broken in sudden stress, and 

 so given to the Service by its servants. 



