THE GUARDIAN OF OUR FORESTS 



1331 



lated districts. The teacher lives with the family for 

 the nine months of the school year, in their little wick- 

 i-up, 18 miles from the nearest railroad. This may 

 sound very romantic until one remembers that the 



acre to build from 10 to 40 houses. These permits are 

 usually taken up by people in Washington and Oregon 

 who wish to spend a few weeks or months in hunting 

 and fishing. The tourists from the East usually take 

 the main traveled roads, instead 

 of the untried trail dear to the 

 heart of the true Westerner. 



It is a curious fact that ap- 

 proximately 75 per cent of the 

 rangers are married to school 

 teachers. You will wonder 

 where all the school teachers 

 come from in this sparsely set- 

 tled region. This is partly ex- 

 plained by the fact that every 

 district has at least one teacher, 

 regardless of the number of 

 pupils. Since 25 per cent of all 

 receipts from the National For- 

 ests go to the counties in which 

 they lie, to be used for schools 

 and roads, they can well afford 

 to employ a teacher at an at- 

 tractive salary. An additional 

 10 per cent is expended by the secretary of agri- Indians in that part of the country are not the "six-foot in their 

 culture upon the roads and trails constructed stockings" type, which romance and the movies love to picture. 



primarily for the benefit of | : 1 They are short and heavy set, and many of them are 



settlers within the forests. In 

 one district in Washington, 



HOME OF A RANGER 

 Typical ranger cabin in the less mountainous districts, Washakie National Forest, Wyoming. 



there are but two "children," 

 one a boy of 22 years of age, 

 the other a girl of nine. These 

 children are half breeds, their 

 mother a full-blooded Indian, 

 the father a white man, 



blind, owing to their unsanitary mode of living. They are 

 neither energetic nor industrious, and are quite content to live 

 in rude little huts, made by bracing a few logs against each 

 other, and in these huts they live all winter long, with only an 

 open fire to keep out the bitter cold. They live on fish, mostly 

 salmon, which come up the mountain streams in the spring, mid- 

 summer and fall, to spawn, but never get back to the ocean, as 

 those which are not caught are dashed against the rocks and 

 killed, or, having accomplished their purpose in life, die 



AN UNUSUAL BIT OF SCENF,RY IN A NATIONAL FOREST 



Spruce trees, with crowns whipped into peculiar, fantastic shape by the 



winds. 



"squaw man," as he is scornfully called in that section 

 of the country. But these youngsters receive individual 

 attention seldom accorded to children in the more popu- 



RANGERS PLANTING FISH 



The rangers co-operate with the State fish and game commissions and are 

 instrumental in planting, in the mountain streams, billions of fish fry, 

 which play no unimportant part in the food supply of the country as well 

 as furnish a means of recreation for city sportsmen. 



a natural death. The Indians dry the fish which they 

 catch by hanging them on the sides of their cabins. 



