188 SADDLE AND CAMP 



pressed themselves without reserve as seeing no 

 harm in "getting a piece of meat" whenever 

 they want it. The sentiment is carried into ex- 

 ecution in all secluded sections, and not a few 

 mountain sheep, deer, elk, and wild fowl are 

 killed in Colorado by men who believe they are 

 morally right in doing so, irrespective of law. 



Colorado has too few game wardens by far 

 to watch everybody, and some of them are not 

 over-anxious to see infringements, for reasons 

 that appeal to them as quite sufficient. The best 

 wardens are United States forestry rangers, in 

 States where they are clothed with authority to 

 make arrests. They are usually not native to 

 the localities where they are stationed and have 

 no preferences or axes to grind. Local war- 

 dens, on the contrary, are frequently appointed 

 through the instrumentality of their friends, 

 and they hesitate to prosecute those friends 

 whom they find infringing the law. Not infre- 

 quently to do so would mean the loss of their 

 offices. 



There are some instances where the wardens 

 themselves are notorious poachers, and their 

 appointment, through proper influence, leaves 

 a free field in their districts, save to some un- 

 fortunate outsider who intrudes, or to those 

 who do not belong to the charmed circle. This 



Min 



