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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1 a.6'3 



VOL. XXIII 



AUGUST 1917 



NO. 284 



FORESTERS TO THE FRONT 



BY BRISTOW ADAMS 



Far from Floridian sands and pines, 



From Maine's dark-mantled, spruce-clad hills 



From Klamath firs in serried lines. 

 From Coconino's lumber mills, 



CAPTAIN INMAN F. ELDREDGE, of the Tenth 

 Reserve Engineers (Forest) was peering through 

 the eyepiece of a transit and directing the civihan 

 contractor as to where the corner stakes should be 

 driven for the barracks for housing the regiment to 

 which he had been assigned. The time was late after- 

 noon, and the place was 

 the engineers' camp on the 

 grounds of the American 

 University, somewhere in 

 the northwest quarter of 

 the District of Columbia. 

 If he had not been to the 

 west of the structure, he 

 could have been literally 

 within the shadow of 

 a white marble building, 

 upon the face of which 

 were deep-chiseled words 

 "College of History." 



Eldredge's deeds of the 

 day were helping to make 

 the history of tomorrow, 

 but he did not feel like a 

 historical personage far 

 from it. In getting the 

 ground cleared of sassa- 

 fras brush and blackberry 

 bushes, he had become 

 the host of a small army 

 of chiggers, and although 

 chiggers can get under 

 them readily, one cannot 

 scratch chigger-bites 

 through leather puttee 

 leggings. Moreover, his 

 mess had partaken of 

 some tinned food a day or 

 so before and there had 



LIEUTENANT COLONEL 



A regular -who has been designated by 



comman<l the first of 



We see them come with saw and ax, 

 With wedge and peavy, hook and chain, 



With hardened hands and sturdy backs 

 To hack and hew for trench and train. 



been something wrong with that food. The field hos- 

 pital was taking no chances, so it used up all of a 

 barrel-and-a-quarter of perfectly good castor oil in 

 dosing the Captain and his mess-mates. It was the 

 first castor oil he had ever taken in his life without 

 a preliminary licking and it was a man's-size dose. Mil- 

 itary discipline counted 

 for something after all! 



Not that he had any 

 objection to military disci- 

 pline; he took to it like a 

 hound to a rabbit track. 

 As Supervisor of the Flor- 

 ida National Forest he 

 had required uniforms 

 and insignia of rank for 

 all his Forest officers. He 

 knew the value of inspec- 

 tions and of strjct lines of 

 accountability. He had 

 wanted to get into the war 

 from the day it was seen 

 to be inevitable, and on 

 another day shortly after 

 had passed the examina- 

 tion for a captaincy in the 

 Engineer Corps. Small 

 wonder that he was as- 

 signed to the popularly 

 so-called Forest Regiment 

 in May, as soon as its for- 

 mation was assured. 



It must not be thought 

 that Eldredge had no ideas 

 about history. Even the 

 chiggers could not get his 

 mind off the fact that he 

 was demolishing a Yankee 

 fort which was one of the 

 defenses of Washington 



453 



JAMES A. WOODRUFF 



the War Department to organize and 



the Forest Regiments. 



