44 POTLATCH TI.MUKR PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION 



THE MEANEST MAN 



The meanest man has been found. He did not beat his 

 mother or eat the delicacies on the grave of a dead Chinaman 

 and he is not a million miles from Elk River. 



This man has a ranch not far from Southwick. During the 

 dry weather last summer he started a slashing tire on hi> u\vn 

 place without a permit and would have been jailed if there had 

 been evidence enough to convict him. 



This fire got away from him, as he had made no preparations 

 whatever to control it and so the Potlatch Timber Protective As- 

 sociation had to fight it for two weeks. The hardest fight was that 

 to save his own home and barn, and at that time 126 men, hired 

 by the association were on the job, together with hired teams and 

 an automobile. One of the fire fighters was injured and several 

 badly scorched, while the whole bunch worked almost to the limit 

 of human endurance. 



"When the rains came and the crew came in. more or less 

 equipment was missing, as is always the case after a big fire and 

 the missing tools are understood to have shown up at his house as 

 his own property. 



Then this man brought in a little bill against the association. 



He charged it $16 a day for the hire of himself and a jack- 

 leg team in saving his own home and crop. He charged for the 

 use of his barn when the men fighting the fire he himself started 

 slept in it. He charged rent for the ground the fire fighters camp- 

 ed on. He charged for the water from his spring that the wean- 

 crew drank. He charged for the wood the cooks burned although 

 he ate free at the fire fighter's table, and to crown it all he charged 

 $2.50 for hauling away the empty tin cans left at the camp by the 

 cooks. 



And he got the money. 



The association cut his bill a little and paid it, with the hope 

 that he would be gathered to his fathers in using the tools that he 

 so miraculously found after. the fire, Elk River Sentinel. 



