48o 



CONSERVATION 



as everything else is given, in utter 

 gladness of heart. 



When the work of this generation is 

 done, when the place of this new pro- 

 fession is fully established among men, 

 and when even these joyous fighting 

 days of ours appear as remote as the 

 cave-men and hairy mammoths, it may 

 be that here and there in especially 

 favored forests (of which may Sierra 

 be one) there will be traditions still 

 lingering that once, in the Days of the 

 Beginnings, were very strenuous men 

 who rode great horses everywhere, and 

 boldly fought evil, and earnestly created 

 good-will, and so made possible that 

 more scientific forestry of which they 

 had only visions. 



Yes ! it may even happen that here 

 and there some granite boulders, or 

 some great pine planted 300 years be- 

 fore, on some ranger's grave, will say 

 to all the world: "Here — just here— a 

 nameless ranger laid down his life, just 



to help the forest that he loved. Just 

 to maintain the great traditions of the 

 Service." And men, looking, will say 

 to each other : "These were the verv 

 foundation stones of the Temple of 

 Forestry. It has been builded upon 

 such lives as these, and on the lives of 

 thousands of others to whom no chrism 

 of martyrdom came, but who were just 

 as faithful. All of them labored on in 

 darkness as in light, in lean years as in 

 fat ones, under withering criticisms, 

 just as earnestly as in the sunshine of 

 public praise. The Temple is builded 

 because men could once run and ride, 

 could fight and laugh, and live more 

 keenly than we in these late days." 



Then, saying such things as these, 

 men will envy us of this very year, for- 

 getting our many mistakes. We shall 

 lie among our rocks as Beowulf in his 

 sea-mound, seen from afar, a guide to 

 the ships and a word in the mouths of 

 men. 



On the Trail in the High Country 



