THE MULE-DEER 227 



laws, and above all, by a better administration of the law. 

 The national Government could do much by establishing 

 its forest reserves as game reserves, and putting on a suf- 

 ficient number of forest rangers who should be empow- 

 ered to prevent all hunting on the reserves. The State 

 governments can do still more. Colorado has good laws, 

 but they are not well enforced. The easy method of 

 accounting for this fact is to say that it is due to the 

 politicians; but in reality the politicians merely represent 

 the wishes, or more commonly the indifference, of the 

 people. As long as the good citizens of a State are indif- 

 ferent to game protection, or take but a tepid interest 

 in it, the politicians, through their agents, will leave the 

 game laws unenforced. But if the people of Colorado, 

 Wyoming, and Montana come to feel the genuine interest 

 in the enforcement of these laws that the people of Maine 

 and Vermont have grown to take during the past twenty 

 years, that the people of Montana and Wyoming who 

 dwell alongside the Yellowstone Park are already taking 

 then not only will the mule-deer cease to diminish, but 

 it will positively increase. It is a mistake to suppose that 

 such a change would only be to the advantage of well- 

 to-do sportsmen. Men who are interested in hunting for 

 hunting's sake, men who come from the great cities re- 

 mote from the mountains in order to get three or four 

 weeks' healthy, manly holiday, would undoubtedly be 

 benefited; but the greatest benefit would be to the peo- 

 ple of the localities, of the neighborhoods round about. 

 The presence of the game would attract outsiders who 

 would leave in the country money, or its equivalent, 



