. Conservation. Forests and forestry. WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 475 may have to turn around in an hour or so and hit the back trails. Our horses begin to have a chance to keep in condition all summer. That is one reason why we are doing our best to put up more telephone lines. We still have district centers up here in Sierra, from which it takes a week to get a reply to a letter! A few days ago we had ten fires all at the same time in our 3,000,000-acre forest. Summer thun- der storms and lightning-struck trees started most of them. Our rangers were toiling everywhere; "dead on our feet,&
. Conservation. Forests and forestry. WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 475 may have to turn around in an hour or so and hit the back trails. Our horses begin to have a chance to keep in condition all summer. That is one reason why we are doing our best to put up more telephone lines. We still have district centers up here in Sierra, from which it takes a week to get a reply to a letter! A few days ago we had ten fires all at the same time in our 3,000,000-acre forest. Summer thun- der storms and lightning-struck trees started most of them. Our rangers were toiling everywhere; "dead on our feet," as one boy said. "Sixty hours hard places, where no trails can ever be made, for it is a little and stupid thing to be merely able to follow a plain trail from one point to another. One only does that because energy should not be wasted. But there are times when you and your horse go together "across lots," following water courses, or ridges, or striking through an en- tirely new country, as if you had been dropped from an air-ship into the midst of a strange continent of Saturn. Then the horse draws strength from your intelligence, and you, if you are wise, learn to use more of his than you had. Rangers and Their Families Breaking Camp without a nap," as another reported. Several rangers pushed their horses all day and all night, leaving one con- quered fire to ride into another district and help the men there. So you may understand why one ranger, when the new telephone line reached his cabin went out and gave all his horses an extra feed of barley, and told them to celebrate the event. But all the telephones on earth will never do away with the need of meet- ing men face to face, and so we shall always use horses on mountain trails and through the forests. We shall al- ways have that quiet and perfect un- derstanding between man and horse which only comes from lonely rides in before thought possible. (At least that is the way that Tiapo and I travel
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