had drawn on his own bank account to 

 fight fires ; how he had been burned out 

 every season since coming there, how 

 he was dead tired of it, and was ready 

 to take almost any chance in stopping it. 



Professor L,ovejoy then told of how 

 Chris did put an end to carelessness in 

 the setting of fire to timber thereabouts. 

 One day a fire was reported in by a 

 Guard on one of the river trails. The 

 Guard suspicioned two strangers whom 

 he had seen, one tall and dark and the 

 other "just common." The Guard had 

 noticed the packs, boot nails, guns and 

 tobacco used by the strangers. Chris 

 asked the town Marshall to locate these 

 men if they came in, picked his crew, 

 hired an auto, loaded his outfit, put his 

 foot on the siren, and went to the fire 

 with most of the town helping him get 

 off a-flying. At the end of the road 

 it was trail, and lots of it. Beyond the 

 trail was just mountain jungle. With 

 the crew to relieve the Guard and his 

 helpers, and a knowledge of woods-and 

 mountain-craft perhaps unequaled, the 

 fire was "sewed up," and with witnesses 

 the ranger began hunting for the point 

 of origin of the fire. It was found in a 

 temporary camp where the fire had been 

 left alive to eat into an old log and then 

 to run up the mountain. About the 

 camp Chris found cigarette stubs, chips 

 marked with the grooves of nicks in the 

 axe which cut them, empty shells of the 

 expected caliber and marks of the ex- 

 pected boot nails. 



Back in town the Marshall had locat- 



ed the strangers. By giving them to 

 understand that he was a game warden 

 and inquiring concerning the killing of 

 elk, Chris got the men to implicate 

 themselves and even to swear to a state- 

 ment as to just where they had camped 

 in the mountains. Then the Ranger ar- 

 rested them for leaving an unextinguish- 

 ed camp fire. The U. S. Commissioner 

 did not think he had authority to hear 

 the case, but he heard it. The lawyer for 

 the defendants denied the violation of 

 any law, but Chris had his Use Book. 

 The Court refused to allow the intro- 

 duction of the sworn statesments, but 

 he read them. The Sheriff said he could 

 not look up the fire-setters, but he did 

 it. The grooves in the chips fitted the 

 nicks in the men's axe; they admitted 

 that they used the brand of tobacco used 

 in the cigarette stubs; the empty shells 

 had been used in the guns the two had 

 carried. Chris proved these things. The 

 Commissioner sent for the U. S. Mar- 

 shall, and in due season, the men plead 

 guilty in the Federal Court and were 

 sentenced to ninety days the first jail 

 sentence for violation of the fire laws 

 in that Federal District. 



Lovejoy said he thought it took a 

 mighty good man to be a fire-fighter, de- 

 tective, officer, chief witness and prose- 

 cuting attorney, and this without any 

 assistance or special training. He said 

 that school certainly did a lot, but that 

 it would have to "go some "if it was 

 able to turn out forest officers of the 

 caliber of District Ranger Morgenroth. 



NEWS FROM THE FIELD. 



The winter conferences were pro- 

 tracted ones this year and simply kept 

 up all summer. 



At Commencement we were delighted 

 with a visit from Barrus, '10, and Sax- 



ton, '10. 



Barrus is the same jolly fellow; he 

 has grown somewhat learned since he 

 has handled those many color schemes 

 necessary in New York forest taxa- 



