30 



THE RED DRAGOON 



THE RED DRAGOON 



LEW SARETT 

 I 



\mong the brittle needle* of the pine, 



A harmless ember, casually flung 



Smoldering in the tinder of the soil 



Writhing crimson vipers 



Redly licking at the leaves. 



Bellying into the amorous wind 



With flickering venomous tongues, 



And sinking blue fangs in the heart of the night. 



II 



Lo! blazing mane and streaming bridle, 



Bursting out of the lurid hills, 



A stallion, 



A livid-crimson stallion, 



A lightning-winged stallion. 



Crashing out of the billowing smoke 



On a flaming crimson trail. 



A ghastly shriek in the canyon. 

 An echoing moan in the pines, 

 A wild red rush of flying red feet, 

 And a hand at the charger's bit. 

 A flame-shod foot in the stirrup, 

 A phantom hand on the reins. 

 And lo! a rider in scarlet, 

 A swaggering rider in scarlet. 

 The ghost of a Red Dragoon ! 



A war.brawling wild cavalier, 

 With a cackle sardonic and grim, 

 A bite in his wind-whistling arrows. 

 And a blight in his lethal breath ! 

 Careering he charges the timber 

 With resin-hot lances of gold, 

 And he shouts a demoniac laughter 

 When his blood-bleary eyes behold. 

 Scurrying out of the riotous hills 

 A rabble of shadowy things, 

 Oh, the clatter of whistling deer. 

 The patter of feet in the rushes. 

 The bleat of the panting fawn! 

 Flung out of the timber like leaves. 

 Like burning leaves in the wind 

 Whirled over the hills and the valleys 

 And out to the fringes of night. 



A bloody-gripped red cavalier! 



A blasphemous dread cavalier! 



Galloping into the blue-templed hills 



With a wild ribald song on his lips, 



And a curse for the gray-bearded pines 



That complain of his searing hot breath; 



Sundering their boles with a swift molten fist. 



Cleaving their suppliant branches, 



With a jeer as they go to a thundering death 



Enshrouded in bellowing flame, 



As they wing their gray souls on the spiralling smoke 



Up to the ultimate stars. 



Galloping over tumultuous clouds 



To tilt at the livid-lipped stars; 



Galloping on through the turbulent sky 



And over the rim of the world. 



Ill 



Oh, the toll of the rider in scarlet ! 



The toll of the Red Dragoon! 



Windrows of charred black bones 



Strewn over a (rutted land; 



Skeletons, once draped in the green 



Of leaf and the silken sheen of moss, 



Bare skeletons, bitter of laughter. 



Clattering through long white nights, 



Gray ghosts in a land of gray dead dreams. 



Playing the bow of the wind futilely 



Over the once resonant fiddle. 



Striving again to beguile old melodies. 



Bemoaning the old sweet Aprils. 



O, fiddlers, scratching over the shattered box. 



And scraping over the tattered strings. 



Pray, conjure me a tune! the low call 



Of the last singing bird that is gon| 



FORESTRY IN NEW JERSEY 



(Contiuucd from Page 24.) 

 made possible what state support has not yet been will- 

 ing to undertake, the beginnings of an adequate fire look- 

 out system and an effective patxol. The fire risk is less 

 in the hardwood forest of the northern hill country than 

 in the pines of the southern sandy coastal plain. But the 

 extreme advantage from every angle which the record 

 shows to North Jersey is not wholly or even mostly due 

 to this, but to the fact that Federal aid has here made 

 more adequate facilities available, than State initiative 

 has granted elsewhere or anywhere in the State. 



The New Jersey situation differs in many ways from 

 that m many places. Methods and means required in 

 the wilderness such as for the conditions met in the 

 north woods or on the Pacific Coast are not applicable 

 where steam and electric railroads and good public high- 

 ways penetrate the forests in every quarter. The treat- 

 ment required for safeguarding woodlands which are all 

 easily accessible and continually used as the playground 

 of the densest organized population centre in the world, 

 is different from that demanded in the trackless wilder- 

 ness of the "Big Country. In a section where ignorant, 

 though well intentioned city populations and swarms of 

 new home-makers fresh from foreign shores create the 

 fire problem while at work or play, and where the forest 

 industry is at low ebb because of century long forest 

 abuse and neglect, a different approach is needed than 

 that available where timber spells livelihood to and wood- 

 craft is the primer of a great part of those who frequent 

 the woods. Yet everywhere it is people with whom we 

 must deal, it is public opinion which must prevail against 

 the needless waste by forest fire, and folks must learn 

 to hate and fear the scourge of fire so that their interest 

 and their activity may swallow up the Arch Fiend of the 

 Forest Fire. 



TilE production of spruce lumber and pulpwood in 

 Canada in 1919 reached a value of $72,000,000, the 

 value of the lumber being $44,000,000 and of the pulp- 

 wood $28,000,000. About one-third of Canadian standing 

 timber is estimated to be of spruce. The amount lost by 

 fire and insects during the last two decades is said to have 

 far exceeded the amount used. 



A TON of sandalwood yields an average of 100 pounds 

 of oil. 



'T' HE bamboo sometimes grows two feet in 24 hours. 



We cannot succeed perfectly but we can and do strive 

 and hope. Our success requires the support of all your 

 public-spirited friends. Nominate them for membership. 



There is strength in numbers the more real Ameri- 

 cans we have talking about forestry, the more success- 

 ful become the activities of your Association. Talk for- 

 estry to your friends. 



