Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 3

By Walter A. Donaldson
(Retired 1944)

In January 1897, news came via Western Union to Custer, South Dakota, and other Black Hills towns, that President Grover Cleveland had signed a proclamation "reserving all public lands containing timber which was more valuable for timber than for other purposes." These were to be known as Government Timber Reservations, under the administration of the General Land Office, Department of the Interior.

About June that year, a Mr. Greene, Special agent for the General Land Office, arrived in Custer. He hired a livery team and driver at $3.00 per day, and visited several sawmills in that vicinity, interviewing the operators relative to their land holdings and the timber they were cutting. About twelve sawmills operated in that area then, and after Mr. Greene had sized up all of them he started doing business. The operators who would sign up for a sale of 100 M ft. B.M. kept on operating. After the first 100 M ft. was paid for, cut and released, the operator was required to put up another $100 in cash and went on cutting timber. No record was ever found, however, that showed more than one $100 payment by the sawmill man to the Government.

My father, I.M. Donaldson, was hired at $75 per month from the summer of 1897 to January 1, 1898, to scale logs at the largest mill. At that time timbermen all used the old Doyle scale rule, six feet long, with a hand-hold on one end and a steel hook on the other for hooking at bark-edge. There was no such thing as the Decimal C at that time. Logs were marked with a crayon only, so my father took an old four-pound, single-jack (a one-man rock-drilling hammer) to the blacksmith and had him make a "US" on one face for stamping the scaled logs. I think this hammer was one of the first, if not the first, to be used on a Government timber sale.

I used to help my father stamp the logs, but the hammer was heavy for me to handle and my father would take over when I tired. I was then fourteen years old. I delivered groceries evenings after school and on Saturdays with a one-horse delivery wagon. The store was owned by my father and operated for him by my uncle. My wages were $5.00 a month. Saturday, when my deliveries were finished, I would drive to the sawmill to bring my father home for the weekend.

It was my delight to mark down the figures in the scale book when father called them off to me. He also showed me some things about the use of the scale rule on logs. Many of them scaled from 200 to 400 ft. B.M. I believe some forestry fever got into my system from this experience, to crop out later.

Early in August of 1897, a forest ("timber") fire was reported by one of the range riders. Special Agent Greene hired a man and seven boys to report at the livery stable the next morning to go to the fire. I was among this crew. We had been promised $1.00 per 12-hour day and that was big pay for the "Roaring '90's," so we were all "Johnny-at-the-rat-hole" the next morning at 6:30. The man in charge of our crew chopped down some saplings, trimmed off the limbs, leaving a "brush" at the top, and each boy was given one with which to beat out the blaze. On returning to the livery stable that night, each of us signed a little blue slip and was given a silver dollar by Mr. Greene for our day's work. I afterward learned that the blue slip was a subvoucher for an expense account, and that the Government was allowing 20 cents an hour for firefighting. Six days later the rains came, ending our firefighting job as well as part of Mr. Greene's income!

Mr. Greene left Custer, S.D., late in June 1898, bag and baggage, for parts unknown. He was replaced by a fine gentleman named Hamaker from Indiana. Mr. Hamaker appointed three more men who had been recommended to him by reliable local businessmen. These appointees were James McFadden, J. Freeman Smith, and Cicero Graham. Under Mr. Hamaker, most timber trespasses were settled, and the U.S. Treasury thereafter received all the money due it for timber sold in that vicinity.

Seth Bullock was U.S. Marshall for Dakota Territory, with headquarters at Deadwood, and an oldtime friend and range-riding and hunting partner of "Teddy" Roosevelt. He was also a personal friend of Mr. Pinchot, and was appointed the first Supervisor of the Black Hills Forest Reserve early in 1905.

One of the range riders on the Pactola District - Pitts, by name - sent in his diary at the end of the month, which read in part about as follows: "Rode up Rapid Creek to sawmill; found everything all right there; caught mess of trout on way back to camp. Started work 8:00 a.m., rode 8 miles; quit work at 5:30 p.m." Bullock read the diary and immediately wrote the range rider: "On (date) your diary shows, 'Rode to sawmill, etc.' On this date there was a considerable fire two miles west of the sawmill on Rapid Creek. Why did you not go another two miles and put out the fire?" Pitts replied: "I had been to a dance in Pactola the night before and had I gone any farther it would have interfered with my afternoon nap." Bullock then wrote Pitts: "Your resignation will be expected by return mail." Resignation submitted.

*****

Gifford Pinchot was appointed Chief Forester by James Wilson, Under Secretary of Agriculture in 1905, when the Forest Reserves were transferred from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. From 1897 to 1905 the Reserves had been administered by Special Agents from General Land Office personnel. The Secretary of the Interior made these political appointments.

Following his appointment, Mr. Pinchot made a hurried inspection of the Black Hills, as well as the forests in western Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. On his return to Washington he started plans for reorganization under Civil Service rules. Some of the Interior Department's political appointees whose consciences wouldn't permit a good night's sleep saw the handwriting on the wall and resigned. However, there were some good men on the job who stayed, took the Civil Service examination and received appointments.

Richard P. Imes, a native of the area, was the first forest assistant (technical forester) to be assigned to the Black Hills under the Pinchot administration. He finished his forestry schooling in Michigan, and passed the examination for forest assistant in the spring of 1905. The Washington Office started sending out technical dope from Mr. Pinchot's office, some of which, presumably, was composed by Forest Assistant H.C. Neal, a forestry graduate from Yale. He was, it seemed, author of a letter directed to Supervisor Bullock which stated that the Washington Office desired a full report on the extent and nature of the bug infestation then current in ponderosa (yellow) pine in the Black Hills by the beetle technically known as Dendroctenus Ponderosa. Mr. Neal was rather fond of throwing around as many technical terms as possible, with which Bullock was unfamiliar.

Bullock read the letter over a couple of times and then handed it to Forest Assistant Imes, saying, "Dick, what in h—- does this mean?" Imes told him, whereupon Bullock jumped from his chair and left the office. He returned in about half an hour and penned a letter to the Washington Office, which read about as follows: "My dear Gifford: Your letter of (date) received and contents noted. Out here we call a tree a tree and a bug a bug, and I have a very good boy here, Dick Imes, who knows more about technical forestry now than I ever will know. Please accept my resignation, to take effect as soon as you can get someone to take over ..." Shortly following, J. Freeman Smith, head Ranger from Custer, was called to Deadwood to take over as acting Supervisor, and Bullock was reappointed as United States Marshall.

When Smith was appointed acting Supervisor, he hired me to look after his 40 head of cattle, along with 21 head of my own, on Government range near Custer. This same arrangement continued in 1906, when he agreed to pay me $60 per month for the season. I was also to put out or report any timber fires I saw, and to make notes of anyone who wanted timber for fuel or building material so that a free-use permit could be issued. He furnished me with a nickel-plated badge about two and one-half inches in diameter, with this wording, as near as I can remember, circling the edge: "United States Department of the Interior, Timber Reserve Service." Across the middle of the badge were the words, "Range Rider." I soon learned to wear this badge under my vest unstead of outside, as it made a very prominent target. I had no knowledge whatever about any forest regulations, never having seen the Use Book or knowing even that one existed.

In February 1906, Mr. Smith posted a notice in the Custer Post Office, stating that a Civil Service examination for assistant Forest Ranger would be held at Hill City, S.D., early in March. He interviewed several young fellows and took applications for admittance to the exam. Fourteen applied, including myself. The salary of assistant Ranger would be $900 per annum, and as I had not done too well on the little stump ranch I had been farming, this salary looked like a fortune to me.

This group met at the Harney Peak Hotel in Hill City on a March morning. The package of examination papers was opened in our presence so we could see that there had been no finagling of any kind. The written portion of the exam took all of the first day. I felt sorry for two or three of these young men, as they seemed to get stage fright or something and just could not think of anything to write. When time was called, one of them handed in his paper with nothing on it but his name and address, and Mr. Imes showed him where to put that.

The second morning we went to a timbered area near Hill City for our field test. Each of us was given a blank map sheet and a plainly marked section corner as a starting point. We were to locate and describe all four corners of a designated forty acres, make a map showing the topography and the approximate amount in board feet of all timber of the area. I was fortunate in having had some experience in dragging chain for a good mineral surveyor, and was quite accurate in pacing distances. He had also shown me how to read a compass, which also helped me considerably in my mapping.

This work consumed the forenoon, and after lunch we were assigned a tree to chop down, trim off the limbs, pile the brush, chop notches to indicate the proper log lengths, and give an estimate of the number of board feet it contained. My previous experience with my father helped me in this operation. Next we had to saddle and bridle a horse, mount and ride him fifty yards at a walk, trot him another fifty yards, and lope him back to the starting point. We were timed, and rated on efficiency. All made good scores on this, having practically been raised on horses.

Then came the packing test. Strewn around on the ground was the "outfit." It consisted of a sawbuck pack saddle, blankets, ropes, bedroll, grub, pots and pans, dishes, shovel, axe, teepee, dutch oven, gun, duffel bag, and a gentle horse; also three 6' x 6' canvas pack covers (manties) for cargoing all that "junk." Here the fun started. Imes, Peltz, Shoemaker and I were the only ones who had ever seen a horse packed, to say nothing of ever having tried to pack one, so Imes held us back until last and let the other boys figure it out as best they could. For the horse's safety, the boys were coached in getting the pack saddle on the horse right-end-to.

Some of the boys put the bedroll on first and started to pile stuff on that, then the teepee, and then began to rope it on. It was a real circus. None of them knew how to use the standard pack cinch. Some of them tied all they could get to stick on with the sling ropes, threw the teepee over the top and put on the "Oregon wind," which is to throw the rope over the top and then under, and tie a slip knot. From there on it was "round and round" until the rope was used, and then tic the end. When the horse was walked around, things began to fall off, and when the horse was trotted around a circle, nothing remained on him but the saddle, teepee and a bunch of tangled ropes. A few of the fellows made the pack stick on the horse by much weaving of rope and all kinds of knots, but did not rate very high on their papers.

The marksmanship test, using pistol and rifle, was given next, and all made good scores because we had been handling rifles since we were big enough to shoulder a gun. After the exam was completed, Mr. Imes gave us a talk on forestry practices, including watershed protection, forest fire prevention and suppression, and public relations, which was very interesting to us.

Of the fourteen who took the examination, those who passed were William Wiehe, Theodore Shoemaker (not the same man by this name who later came to Region 1, and retired some years ago from the Division of Fire Control), Frank S. Thompson, Standish Smith, Ed Clark, and "Yours truly." Bob Peltz missed passing by two points, but on Supervisor Smith's recommendation, the Civil Service Commission passed him because of his previous experience. A timber sale had been made in the fall of 1905 to the McLaughlin Tie and Timber Company for 50 million feet of western yellow pine, "insect-infested, standing and down, as designated by the forest officer in charge." Peltz was sent to the Beasant Ranger Station with Ed Hamilton and Imes to work on this sale. The Company's sawmill was located at Nahant, S.D., on the CB & Q Railroad. The stumpage price was $1.00 per M ft. B.M. for dead, standing and down, and $2.00 per M for any infested green timber which might be marked for cutting by the forest officer in charge.

A few old buildings and some twenty acres of pasture had been appropriated by Hamilton and Neal and set aside as the Beasant Ranger Station. The buildings consisted of one 12' x 24' log house, one 10' x 14' log chicken house, one log barn, and a good pole corral. There was a fine mountain spring near the house, into which the boys had sunk a 50-gallon oak barrel for a water supply. These buildings were on Government land that had been surveyed and reported to Washington, D.C., for approval as an administrative site. They had been repaired and were being used by Hamilton and the other men working with him on the sale.

Those who had passed the examination were notified to report for duty on November 1, 1906. My wife and I had been married just a year when we started on the 60-mile trip to our new location, the Beasant Ranger Station. Our household effects, loaded on my nearly new Mitchell lumber wagon, consisted of a Monarch range with copper reservoir, dining table, four dining chairs, a rocking chair, one oak bedstead, mattress and springs, a dresser with mirror, a trunk of clothing, a box of kitchen utensils, a barrel of dishes packed in clothing, a roll of bedding, one fair-sized box of grub, two sacks of spuds, and two sacks of oats for the team. We drove into town for the night where my wife stayed with her parents and I stayed with mine.

The temperature was just above zero, with snow threatening, when we left at 8:30 the next morning, I dressed in an old "sourdough" (a long sheepskin-lined coat), and my wife in a coonskin overcoat. My father loaned us an old Indian-tanned buffalo robe to put over our laps, so we were well protected from the weather. Our first ten miles the traveling was fairly good, but after that the road got progressively worse, and about 10:00 a.m. snow began to fall. By noon there was about eight inches and the wind was blowing. We were passing the ranch of a German family when the man came out to the road and invited us to come in for dinner and get warm. He put the team in the barn and fed them. We reached the Charles and Toby Vonderlehr ranch after twelve miles of travel that afternoon and were put up there for the night. Here we received the same hospitable treatment that had been accorded us at noontime.

About fifteen inches of snow had fallen by the next morning, and we encountered some difficult drifts in our fifteen miles of travel that day. We stopped at the Tony Matt ranch on Castle Creek during the day, and went on to Reynolds Prairie where we spent the night at the Reynolds' ranch. We got started soon after daylight the next morning, and arrived at the Beasant Ranger Station after dark. Snow was up to the horses' bellies at the Ranger Station.

Several of us helped Thompson and Wiehe lay up the square of a cabin at Railhead, where they could live near the job, and we had a "housewarming" Thanksgiving Day, with venison in place of turkey.

*****

Completing the boundary posting on the western portion of the McLaughlin Company sale and cruising and marking for cutting all insect-infested timber, was no small job with three to five feet of snow on the ground. We were all equipped with snowshoes or skis. Bobsleds with nine foot bunks were used, and some tremendous loads were hauled. "Snap" teams helped to break sleigh roads in the woods to assist in getting the loads out to the main roads. At the landings where logs were loaded onto cars there was a crosshaul jammer powered by a 1500-pound skidding horse and a driver. This old "pony" and some of the other skidding horses were so well trained they scarcely needed a driver. In addition, there was a "top-loader" and two hookers who set the hooks in the ends of the logs. This made up the loading crew at each of the five landings. Ten to fifteen loads per day were hauled to the mill.

The small village of Nahant was headquarters for the big mill. Six miles west was Camp One where the cutting and hauling had started and was two-thirds completed. At Camp Two, eleven miles west of Nahant and three miles east of Beasant Ranger Station, full-scale logging was being done. A railroad siding for loading logs existed here.

Camp Two was operated by a man named Skinner - a stable boss who had charge of caring for the work horses. His wife operated the boarding house under a contract with the Company. Skinner had quite a large family - a girl about fifteen years old, and five other children ranging down to a toddler. Mrs. Skinner had a great curiosity as to what was going on up and down the line, and as we had telephone connections from headquarters to all camps, Mrs. Skinner spent some of her time at the phone "rubbering." Whenever the telephone would ring, the receiver at Camp Two came down and we could hear the elder girl banging the pans and dishes around, the baby crying, dogs barking, the middle-sized kids fighting, and we knew Camp Two was listening in.

The senior McLaughlin had two sons, Ray and Ed, and a son-in-law, with the Company. Pat Flynn, the son-in-law, was quite a joker, and one day he framed up with Ray to call from Camp Three on some pretext or other, and this is about the way the story goes:

Ray: Hello, Pat, how's everything going down there?

Pat: Oh, about as usual but rather cold. Oh, yes, by the way, did you hear about the bad accident at Camp Two?

Ray: No, what was it?

Pat: Well, when you rang me up a while ago, Mrs. Skinner at Camp Two ran over her baby and tromped it to death trying to get to the phone in time to hear the conversation.

The receiver at Camp Two went up with a bang, and only some of the men would answer the phone at Camp Two for nearly a month. My wife heard the foregoing conversation over the phone, but there was no noise at the Ranger Station to give her away when she rubbered, so she got away with it; however, she was mighty careful after that when she listened in.

*****

I received word in late February 1907 that I was to be transferred to the Hill City Ranger District, to be stationed at the old Jackson ranch some fifteen miles west of Hill City. I was to be responsible for supervision and administration of the Fred Beaman timber sale operation, and rehabilitation of the improvements of the Ranger Station. I was to report March 1, and would be given an allotment of $50 with which to buy material to repair the house there.

My wife and I were very happy about our transfer back to what we considered God's country after the winter we had experienced in the deep snow. Peltz also was happy about it as it would permit him to get married immediately and bring his bride to the Beasant Station, where he was to take charge.

Mr. Beaman had agreed to furnish me accommodations at the sawmill camp until I had the house at the Jackson ranch habitable, when my wife was to join me. I reached the Beaman sawmill in time for supper February 28, having ridden my horse to my new station. When daylight came the next morning, things did not look so hot to me. There were only two white men in camp, other than the Beaman family. The others were Negroes, most of them ex-soldiers from the Ninth Cavalry (all colored) at Fort Robinson near Crawford, Nebraska. They had been in the employ of Beaman for a long time on wild-hay-cutting contracts, putting up hay for the Ninth Cavalry at Fort Robinson. The Beamans furnished me board and room so I would not have to eat or sleep with the colored people, which was quite agreeable to me.

In a short time I had made the house habitable and my wife's father brought her to our new home and helped me build a brick chimney and do a lot of carpentry work; he was a professional carpenter. He also helped me repair fences and build some new fence around sixty acres of good meadowland, thirty acres of tillable farm land and thirty acres of horse pasture. Then he borrowed a disk harrow and a drag harrow and walking plow, and cultivated the farm land, disked the meadow and made the ground ready for planting. Supervisor Smith had allotted me $30 for feed for my saddle horses, with which I purchased half a ton of seed barley for $8.00, 500 lb. of seed oats for $4.00, and 100 lb. of mountain timothy and Alsyke clover mixed, for $10.00.

While we had been at the Beasant Station the men paid Mrs. Donaldson 25 cents per meal for their board, and we were able to deposit $50 of my monthly $75 salary in the bank, giving us a little money to go on when we moved to the Jackson Ranch Ranger Station (later named Medicine Mountain Ranger Station by Mr. Imes, this name being given because of a highly mineralized spring in the side of Medicine Mountain just west of the Ranger Station).

My nearest point of communication was Oreville, S.D., on the CB & Q Railroad, nine miles southeast of the Ranger Station, and consisted of a railroad section house, siding, post office, small store, and sawmill. The only trail to Oreville was one I routed and blazed. I traveled this trail to get my mail and on one trip received a letter informing me that the Beaver Creek Cattle Company had a grazing permit in that area for 100 head of cows with calves, and instructing me to inspect conditions and report. I learned that this Company had about 400 head of steers in addition to the 100 head of cattle grazing in the area. I had very little knowledge of the grazing regulations up to then, as my principal experience had been in timber sale work; however, my judgment told me that a permit for 100 head of cattle did not permit 500 head to graze on the forest.

On my way home, I encountered cattle branded "M-W" most everywhere, so I set up camp near Bull Springs. I decided to ride about three miles to Antelope Springs to look things over in that part of the country. On my way I smelled wood smoke and rode over a little rise in the ground to see a log cabin with smoke coming out of the stovepipe. I decided to see if I could have dinner with whoever was there. As was my custom, I stopped at a respectful distance to let my presence be known. When I "halooed," the door opened part way and I was looking at an old black felt hat with a lot of black whiskers under it and a pair of beady eyes. This character asked me what the h—- I wanted, and I told him I would like a drink of water. About that time he caught sight of my Forest Service badge and said, "So you're the d—- S-of-a-B who has been running my cattle off the hill, are you?" He reached behind the doorjamb and came out with a carbine of some kind, and let drive with a shot near my horse's feet. This kicked up gravel onto the horse's belly and he "blew his top" and tried to unload me. Every time I thought I had him stopped from bucking, the "bastard" would cut loose with another slug and start my bronc to bucking again. He fired three shots, but not at me. Those guys don't miss at that range; most of them can knock a coyote over at a hundred yards, running.

Next day I rode to Oreville and reported to Supervisor Smith by phone. Two days later, Smith, U.S. Marshall Seth Bullock, the sheriff of Weston County, the manager of the M-W cattle outfit, and I left camp for the old cabin where "my friend" had been. We found nothing but a couple of dirty old "soogans," dirty dishes, and a bunch of black whiskers mixed with "Monkey Ward" catalog, where the guy had come out of the brush and left the country. The manager of the cattle company disclaimed any knowledge of the fellow so we could do nothing about the shooting. The Company agreed upon a settlement of $1.00 per head for trespass of the 400 head of steers.

The Forest Service had its first Ranger meeting ever to be held in the Black Hills the latter part of March 1907. I still have a large photograph of the group attending that meeting. Much information and knowledge was obtained at this meeting which was to benefit all of us later on.

The entertainment committee had made arrangements for a banquet at the Franklin Hotel, with all viands, beer and cigars to be furnished by the hotel for $1.50 per head. The banquet lasted until about 11:30 P.M., and we were trying to sing "Sweet Adeline," "Clementine," and "Auld Lang Sync," and not doing bad at that, when Art Lynn proposed a period of fifteen minutes for toasts before adjournunent. One which received a big hand was the following, composed and delivered by H.C. Neal:

Here's to the Bug Dendroctenus,
Who lives on the bark of the pine.
He likes to eat pitch,
The son-of-a-b——,
And is harder to kill than a lion.

Motion to adjourn was unanimously approved, with the stipulation that those who cared to would take in the town. Most of us did so, visiting China Town, Mike Russel's "1876" Bar and Casino on Main Street, Patsy Carr's "1878" Saloon and Dancehall on Placer Street, and a few other intervening points of interest. Nowadays you seldom if ever meet a police force as congenial, and with the old pioneer spirit, as that we encountered that night in Deadwood. They very obligingly and gently escorted several of the boys to their private rooms at the Franklin Hotel instead of to the brig, and gave several others of us some fatherly advice, which we accepted with many thanks.

About the first of May following the Ranger meeting, we all received a circular letter signed by Mr. Pinchot and approved by Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, regarding a new regulation which prohibited "the drinking of any intoxicating liquors in public," and advising us as to our personal conduct. As a result of that regulation we never got quite so wild at any of our succeeding Ranger meetings.

*****

In the spring of 1907, many applications were being made for forest homesteads under the Act of June 11, 1906. Paul D. Kelleeter was sent out from Washington, D.C., to make examinations and reports on these applications for entry.

About August that year, Mr: L.F. Kneipp, General Inspector, came to the Black Hills to make a thorough inspection. I was in the field when he and Ranger Shoemaker arrived at my station. The next morning they saw the cattle that Supervisor Smith and I were running on Willow Creek, and made a count of them and of the brands - "JFS" and "WAD." I was in the woods hammering the good old "US" on cordwood piles for all I was worth when I heard someone yell, "Hi, there, Ranger." Looking around, I saw Shoemaker and Kneipp sitting on their horses and each leading a packhorse. They both had big grins on their faces and nearly a week's growth of beard.

We sat on a log and had a smoke and a chat, and then rode to camp where we had supper at the sawmill boarding house. After setting up Shoemaker's and Kneipp's tepees for the night, we sat down to a business session relative to the work on my District, and regulations, laws, etc., for my enlightenment. Mr. Kneipp had his "Little Black Book" and brought up the subject of grazing and the matter of my cattle and those belonging to Supervisor Smith. I explained the situation, and he told me that a forest officer or other Federal employee was not permitted to own or have any interest whatever in any business affecting the use of the National Forest resources. Also, that within a reasonable time I would be required to choose between the cattle business and the Forest Service job. I agreed to sell my cattle at the earliest date I could locate a buyer, and he told me that if I could dispose of them not later than September 30, he could report me "in the clear," and this I did.

Mr. Smith had previously sold his cattle but the purchaser had let them continue to run on the range where they were located, but we both had to pay for a full season's grazing permit. No trespass case was instituted against us. Later on, when I became more familiar with the regulations governing the uses of the National Forests, I realized how fairly Mr. Kneipp had treated me, and it was a lesson I never forgot.

When I was transferred to Hill City to succeed Art Lynn, the $100 a year increase really pepped me up. Art Iynn had been the only Ranger who was using a typewriter, and when he transferred from Hill City to Deadwood he soled me his typewriter since there was a clerk-typist (male) and a later model typewriter in the Deadwood office. I paid him $20 in two monthly installments (which was no bargain at that) for the old beat-up Remington "invisible" (it printed from underneath and the roller had to be turned back to see what had been written). Due to my inexperience with typing and my innumerable errors, I nearly wore out the hinges on the roller in order to produce a legible letter or report.

I worried through the winter with this old wreck, and in the spring traded it in on an old used No. 3 Oliver, paying the salesman, in addition, ten dollars "cash on the barrelhead." In the fall the typewriter salesman returned and, feeling rather prosperous by then, I bought a new $90 No. 5 Oliver for my old No. 3 and $60, to be paid in twelve monthly payments of five dollars each. I had made all but three payments on the new typewriter when the Forest Service started furnishing the Rangers with No. 5 Olivers. The Supervisor made a deal with the Oliver agent to list my typewriter as one purchased on the Government contract and refund me my purchase price, partially due, I imagine, to the fact that I had "pioneered" the use of a typewriter on a Ranger District.

In 1909 the supervisor's office sent me out one of those old crank-type magneto wall telephones. With the help of a burro he borrowed, my brother-in-law, Gus Reder, and I strung wire to hook us up with the Keystone and Custer Ranger Districts, Hill City, and most of the northern Hills country. After completing this job, Gus constructed a lookout table while I prepared a map of the entire forest to mount on the table. Taking Harney Peak as the center, I made a circle twelve inches in diameter, drew in the four cardinal points of the compass, and spaced off the circle into degrees between all the four points. When this map was properly oriented and thumbtacked down, the alidade could be sighted in on a smoke, and a lookout who was familiar with the country could turn in a very accurate location of most any fire, although the distance had to be estimated.

*****

The middle of July 1910, the CB&Q Railroad sent out their track inspection engine and a combination coach to check the tracks from Edgement, S.D., to Deadwood, and a twenty-five mile branch line from Hill City to Keystone. If anything looked bad they could stop and make a close check. Out of Hill City the railroad made a long "S" curve of about two miles to get on top out of the valley toward Keystone. There was very little inflammable material in the valley and they made it to the top without any trouble, but their cinder tray began to fill up and the fireman lowered the screen so he could get a better draft. By so doing, about a six-inch space was left between the firebox and the ash tray; the cinders heaped up in the pan and sifted out onto the railroad track, starting some small fires along the right of way.

Some farmers along the railroad extinguished some of the fires and then reported the fires to me. I arranged for firefighters and then took off for the fires. When I arrived I found twelve small fires, some of which the farmers, their wives and children had taken care of by carrying water in buckets and beating out the flames with burlap sacks. I heard the whistle of the inspection train on its way back from Keystone to Hill City. As it came around a curve I could see a stream of sparks coming out from under the firebox like a blow torch. I rode over to the track and tried to flag them down, but they just tooted their whistle and waved, and gave 'er the "Casey Jones" and out of sight, still pouring out the cinders.

Now, I'm telling you! If you ever saw a mad Ranger there was one heading for Hill City on a d— good horse. I made it to the depot within about five minutes after the train pulled in, and found four "big shots" from the train talking to the agent. I was wearing my "Pine Tree" badge in plain view, but introduced myself and informed them under what authority I was acting and that they were under arrest by the Federal Government for "knowingly and carelessly setting fires to private as well as Government property."

The division superintendent was a big, burley Irishman and inclined to get tough; however, I am part Irish myself, and instructed them to pull the fire from their engine, spot the engine on the siding and not move it until it was released by the Government. The division superintendent wired Omaha for legal advice and requested an attorney to come at once by special conveyance. In the meantime the deputy sheriff, at my request, came to the depot to my assistance. I wired Supervisor Kelleter of the action I had taken. He arrived on the passenger train late that afternoon.

In all, 47 fires were started that day by the inspection engine, as witnessed by ranchers along the way. This case was finally settled in Federal Court in Deadwood, with the railroad company paying all costs and a heavy fine for damages. They were served with an injunction prohibiting them from using that type of locomotive, were required to put spark arresters on the smokestacks of their engines, and a few other restrictions were imposed on them.

*****

In June 1912, as all my immediate relatives were then in Idaho, I guess I was somewhat homesick and asked Supervisor Imes if I could transfer out there. He gave me permission to write the Forest Service for a transfer. William G. Weigle, then Supervisor of the Coeur d'Alene, wrote me that several local men had priority for jobs and that he would be obligated to hire them in preference to men from other localities. I thought it over, and after receiving some letters from "Mama," decided to go out there anyway, so I submitted my resignation effective June 30.

Mrs. Donaldson and I arrived in Coeur d'Alene shortly after the Fourth of July. I was fortunate in getting work at the Blackwell Lumber Company sawmill on the slab-sorting elevator, which I soon learned was no "kid's job."

Supervisor Imes had given me a very good "To-Whom-it-May-Concern" letter, and with this in hand I visited the Forest Service office, hoping to meet Mr. Weigle. However, I found Acting Supervisor Roscoe Haines in charge, with Joe B. Halm, Deputy Supervisor, and Forest Assistant William W. Morris also there. Mr. Haines asked me several questions regarding my past experience in firefighting, tree planting, etc., and then called Mr. Morris into his office to explain details of the planting operation.

Haines said they could use me at the Prichard Ranger Station in connection with the planting job on Lost Creek about ten miles above the station. My wife and I were very happy at my good fortune in getting back into the Forest Service so soon. I drew my time at the Blackwell mill office, receiving a check for $24.00 for one week's work.

I was to leave the following morning by boat (the "Flier") for Harrison. The memories of my first trip up beautiful Coeur d'Alene Lake in the early morning will always remain with me. Several deer at the water's edge watched us go by, and in one shady inlet we saw a mother bear with two cubs. From Harrison I went by train to Prichard, arriving about 4:00 p.m., and called at the Backman Inn to inquire about how to get to the Ranger Station.

Mrs. Backman was a friendly, good-natured person. She invited me in a and when I told her I was to be stationed at the Ranger Station, she refused to accept payment for my lunch, saying that they never charged the "local Ranger" in cases of that kind. I told her my wife was in Coeur d'Alene but planned to come to the Ranger Station a little later. She asked if Mrs. Donaldson could sew, and when I replied that she was an expert dressmaker, Mrs. Backman asked me to have my wife come up and stay at the Inn, saying that she would pay her for the sewing, and that she could help with the meals and housework for her board and room, which she did.

Mrs. Backman operated the Inn with the help of her son, George Purdin, and his wife. He ran a pack string for the Forest Service in the summer and trapped during the winter, Frequently there would be a dozen or more men on their way out from work and some coming in, making quite a crowd to feed. The charge was 35 cents per meal or three for one dollar; and fifty cents per night for use of the bunkhouse nearby.

*****

Morris, Halm and I went up the river to Big Creek and to Lost Creek to look over the tree-planting site and get the lay of the country, maps of which Morris had made for use on the planting job. When I returned to the Ranger Station several days later, I received a telephone call from the Ranger - I believe it was Phil Neff - at the station some ten miles southeast between Prichard and Enaville. He told me that the rest of my pack string had been brought from Kellogg, Idaho, to his station by Howard Drake, who was running a pack string to the lookouts in the Wallace-Burke and Mulelan area. Ranger Neff had picked out his ten head of horses, Drake had done likewise, and my string was what was left. Six of these horses I could not complain about but the seventh was sure a "lemon" if ever there was one in a pack string. She apparently was a replacement for one of the string that had died during the winter. She weighed 1500 pounds, had long, overgrown hoofs, one hip "knocked down," was blind in one eye, and balky besides.

I told Neff that I couldn't see where she was a pack horse, and he advised me to take her over to Prichard and let Haines take the responsibility for that, so I started out with all seven head. This big mare would not lead well and the other horses were too light to drag her, so I tried riding her and leading the others. She could hardly stand up on level ground, and when there was a small pole or a rock in the trail, she would stumble over it and nearly spill me off.

Because of our slow rate of progress, I was beginning to think I might have to camp out that night. I had made about one and a half miles the first hour and was becoming desperate, having used up all my "muleskinner" vocabulary, when I came upon a man cutting hay with a scythe and loading it onto a "go-devil" to skid to his hayshed for the winter. He was driving a large bay gelding - about the size of my overgrown "pack horse" - and a small, bald-faced mare. Many gunny sacks were being used to pad her collar, and all new holes had been punched in the harness to make it small enough to stay on this little mare.

I visited a little while with this settler and was eyeing his little mare as he was watching the big mare in my pack string. Pretty soon he asked me if I was expecting to pack the big mare, and I told him I was not sure about that yet, He then called my attention to the little mare and said she was an experienced pack animal and "how would I trade?" I looked her over, found her perfectly sound and bearing pack-saddle marks on her back. We traded mares and halters, and as I rode the little mare around the bend I could see the man still fitting his harness to the big mare. During my three months' tour of duty at Prichard, I never saw the man again.

Later on when I had everything in full swing on the planting job, Supervisor Haines came out with Morris to look things over. Haines was very familiar with all the pack horses as he had to inspect them every season and make a report on their condition in case any of them needed to be replaced. He asked me where I got the little mare with the "blaze-face." I told him the story, and he sort of laughed and said, "Where did you get the authority to dispose of Government property?" I said, "Roscoe, there was not another damn thing I could do under the circumstances." He then said he would go by the stumprancher's place and get a bill of sale from him, and would put the "US" brand on the mare in the fall when they took the horses out for the winter. He told me not to brag, however, about my horse-trading ability, and later mentioned to me that he thought I had "skinned" the stump-rancher badly, as he had seen the big mare when he went to get the bill of sale.

*****

The plan was to plant white pine on the north slopes and in the bottoms, ponderosa pine on the south slopes, and Douglas-fir in a small, flat area on Lost Creek east of camp. The area had been heavily burned over in 1910, leaving no trace of any previous Government surveys. It was necessary therefore to locate a section corner in a patch of green timber some one and one-half miles west and run a line into our planting area, establish a point on the boundary, build and mark a cairn and run a traverse around the planted area after the planting was done. To this job I assigned two of the forestry students.

These boys did an excellent job until they came to a cedar swamp near the planting area boundary. As they approached a cedar snag they heard a rustling in the underbrush and caught a glimpse of a cub bear going into the hollow roots of their "marker" tree. One of them got a stick and poked up inside the tree where he could feel the cub, which scrambled farther up inside the tree. They decided to try to capture the cub, but, as a precautionary measure, cut and trimmed several strong clubs to have handy in case the old bear returned. When they could not get the cub to come out by poking him with a stick, one of the boys picked up a heavy limb and pounded on the tree above where the cub was located. This seemed to be accomplishing the desired results as they could hear the cub approaching the opening. While one of the boys pounded on the upper end of the tree the other stood by with a club. Pretty soon the cub made a dash for the brush, and it was such a surprise that all the guy with the club could do was hit the cub on the rump, which only made him run faster. A few seconds later, they heard more scratching in the tree and decided there was another cub in there. Their efforts to capture him met with success when one of the boys who had played football at Moscow volunteered to "make a tackle" on the bear. He got down on his knees in front of the hole and spread his coat across his knees. When the cub emerged with a dash, he hit the coat between the "tackle's" knees and was trapped. With their belts and heavy twine the boys succeeded in getting the cub wrapped up and into camp.

It was very fortunate for them that the old bear did not return; however, she probably was a young mother and had not learned how to count to two yet, so just took the other cub and left the country. The boys tried to feed the little fellow they had captured, but he would not eat and since he was rather puny anyway, I talked them into taking him back the next day, and turning him loose to take his chances.

*****

On one 160-acre section of the planting area, we broadcast-sowed with so-called "whirl-wind" seeders - a machine with a seed container carried in front of the man and supported by straps over his shoulders. It was operated by a crank which rotated a set of blades, scattering the seeds on a strip about thirty feet wide.

As I write this, July 20, 1960, I realize it has been forty-eight years since this planting job was done. There should be several sizable trees in that area which were planted in 1912. I have never had the pleasure of returning to that area and seeing conditions there.

*****

We returned to Coeur d'Alene on November 1. I expected to be out of a job on November 15, when I had completed a contour map and other details concerning the summer's work. However, Mr. Haines called Supervisor Tom Spaulding at St. Maries, Idaho, and was told that I could be used on map work under Forest Assistant Fay G. Clark, who had been out with a crew of M.S.U. students all summer on timber reconnaisance in the Fishhook drainage near Avery, Idaho.

The winter of 1912-13 was spent in the St. Maries office on compilation of reconnaissance data and preparing a map of the Fishhook drainage, showing topography, timber stand types, etc. On January 1, 1913, due to action by Supervisor Spaulding, I was reinstated to the position of Forest Ranger at $1200 per annum.

I was assigned to string telephone "tree line" up the Fishhook trail to the lookout at Big Baldy and the packer's headquarters at "49" Meadows, where the horses were kept and from where fire lookout camps were supplied.

We were at the completed end of the line at noon on June 10, 1913, and were eating our lunch when the buzzer on the field set sounded. Ranger Daughs was calling to say he had a telegram for me and that it was very important that I come down to the Ranger Station at once, which I did. The message was from Silcox, and read about as follows: "Report Supervisor Leavitt, Great Falls, at once. Ranger meeting June 13. Permanent. Expenses authorized."

I arrived in Great Falls by train about noon, Sunday, June 12, 1913. The Ranger meeting lasted all the next week. At its conclusion, Supervisor Scott Leavitt instructed me to accompany Ranger Morgan to the Belt Creek Ranger Station, thence via Neihart and Kings Hill over the Little Belt Mountains to White Sulphur Springs and the Four Mile Ranger Station ten miles east of White Sulphur Springs. However, due to reports that the Neihart road was washed badly, I took the train to White Sulphur Springs, following a roundabout course.

Supervisor Leavitt had assured me that an allotment would be made after July 1 to complete the house in good shape at the Four Mile Station. My first job was to install the two outside doors and eight windows, after which I hauled out the Government property and records and a good cookstove which the Forest Service had purchased, also a heating stove, stove-pipe, etc. Mrs. Donaldson joined me at the station late in June. She and I fenced forty acres of bottom land that summer, and part of an another forty acres the next spring for extra pasture.

In the spring of 1914, applications for grazing permits were received, and this was my first season to contact stockmen for this purpose.

The winter of 1913-14 was really tough, with temperatures from December to March dropping to 50° below zero at times. We had lots of snow and wind, making it difficult to get to White Sulphur Springs with the team and buggy for supplies. My wife bought a small "wearer" pig late in the summer which we butchered just before Thanksgiving for part of our winter's meat. She also bought two dozen hens which we kept in the old log cabin that we heated with an old stove all winter so that the hens would be comfortable and furnish us a few eggs. Our nearest neighbor, about half a mile from the Ranger Station, loaned us a cow so we had plenty of fresh milk.

There was a fine stand of pole timber about a mile south of the station. Our near neighbor, William Reed, loaned me a bobsled, and I cut and hauled 125 telephone poles 26 feet long, to build a telephone line from the Ranger Station to the Dogie Ranch five miles to the north, where it would connect with another rural line and would give me connections with White Sulphur Springs, John Bonham's Ranger Station at Martinsdale, the Sheep Creek Ranger Station, and Lew Nforgan's Ranger Station at Belt Creek. Supervisor Leavitt authorized me to hire a fire guard on June 1, and the guard and I constructed the five miles of telephone line in June, before the fire season started.

On the Castle Mountain District there were seven bands of sheep (1500 ewes plus lambs), about 1200 head of cattle and about 300 head of range horses. The Sheep Creek District was much larger and grazed fourteen bands of sheep, five of which lapped over onto Ranger Morgan's district about fifty percent of the three months' high-country grazing season. Each band consisted of 1500 ewes and their lambs. On the lower grazing areas of the Sheep Creek district there were 2250 head of permitted cattle and 300 head of horses.

Ranger Bonham's district, which adjoined mine on the east, grazed about the same number as my district. Ranger Guy Meyers' district, joining mine on the north and northeast, grazed about the same number as mine; and Lew Morgan's district carried much less livestock due to the fact that there was not as much open grazing land but ran heavier on the timber sale work, as the Neihart mines and several sawmills purchase. a considerable amount of timber.

These four Ranger Districts joined corners at Kings Hill, where there was a Forest Service lookout cabin, horse corral and small barn. When we made our monthly grazing inspections, we would meet at the Kings Hill camp with our pack horses and inspect the higher sheep ranges, using Kings Hill camp as headquarters.

Morgan, Myers and I each had a pair of good Airedale bear dogs, and on our final grazing inspection in September we would take the dogs and make about a three-day bear hunt, which was sometimes very exciting and usually netted us three or four good, fat bears to take home for meat and lard. Sometimes in the spring, before the livestock was taken into the mountains, we would meet at Kings Hill and exterminate several stock-killing bears. The bear very often made it next to impossible to keep cattle on their allotted range since, once they were attacked by bears, they refused to stay in the mountains even for shade, fresh feed, water and salt. A mother bear with two yearlings would sometimes get into a band of sheep on their bedground on a moonlight night and kill as many as 75 to 100 sheep and lambs, "just for the fun of it," it seemed.

*****

The next several years was not spent in the Forest Service, but was in close cooperation therewith most of the time, except for the years 1918-1921, when I filed on and proved up on a June 11 homestead on the North Fork on the Musseleshell River eighteen miles northwest of Martinsdale, Montana.

When World War One was declared, I went to Butte, Montana, and signed up with the Spruce Division, which was composed of practically all forestry men, to go to Alaska to assist in the production of spruce for the Government shipyards. However, I was caught in the flu epidemic and was incapacitated for Army Service, as I nearly died during the winter of 1917-18, and the next spring went to my homestead.

I made final proof on my homestead in 1920, the papers for which had to be approved by the Forest Service. When Supervisor Leavitt noted that I had proved up on my place, he wrote me that there would be an examination for the position of Ranger in October 1920, and said if I was interested I had better take this exam. I did so and passed.

The latter part of May 1921, the Regional Office at Missoula wrote me that there was an opening for a Ranger of a district just east of Glacier Park, on the Lewis and Clark Forest. The letter was addressed to me at White Sulphur Springs, Montana, but was missent to White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, and it did not reach me until the Fourth of July. After I finally received it, I wired the Regional Office that I would accept the job if it was still open. They replied, saying that job had been filled but that there might soon be a place open on the Madison Forest which I could have if I wanted it. I accepted this offer, and reported to Supervisor W.J. Derrick at Sheridan, Montana. He sent me to West Yellowstone to relieve Ranger George E. Martin, who was being promoted to the position of deputy supervisor on the Absaroka Forest at Livingston.

I was Ranger at West Yellowstone until June 30, 1925, when I resigned to take a job as deputy sheriff of Gallatin County, at West Yellowstone. I held this job until the next election when "politics changed" and the sheriff and I were both out of a job.

*****

I left West Yellowstone in the fall of 1927 to spend the winter in the Black Hills with my parents, two sisters and only brother. While at Custer that winter I met an old acquaintance who was then district leader in southeastern Wyoming for the U.S. Biological Survey. He asked me to take a job with them as a Government hunter on predatory animal and rodent control. I accepted and made a good showing in my work, receiving a promotion and increase in salary; but in 1931, when the depression hit the stockmen, they could not afford to contribute to the cooperative fund and during April and May, out of 36 field men, 32 were laid off for lack of funds.

Final payment on a new Chrysler coupe I had bought the previous fall had to be made out of my last salary check, which found me rather financially embarrassed and "out on a limb," as it were. I settled up my affairs, sold my saddle horses, and visited for a couple of weeks with my folks at Custer before heading back to Montana.

There was no work to be had in Montana, so I went on to Spokane, Washington, and finally connected up with a cooperative deal between the State and U.S. Biological Survey on predatory animal and rodent control. I was in this job during 1932, in Kootenai and Bonner Counties, and in 1933 was assigned to rodent control at the Priest River Experiment Station, exterminating Columbia ground squirrels, and pocket gophers. This work was under the direction of Owen W. Morris of Lewiston, Idaho, and John B. Thompson, Superintendent of the Priest River Experiment Station. Thirty CCC enrollees were used on this work, and were assigned to me from a camp being set up at the mouth of Big Creek, about one mile south of the experiment station.

In the fall of 1933 I was sent to Bonners Ferry to trap predatory animals from Sandpoint to the Canadian line. I was also trapping beaver for the State on a 50-50 basis. By the middle of December about thirty inches of heavy snow had fallen at Bonners Ferry and in the surrounding country. This was followed by a chinook and heavy rains, flooding the area where my beaver traps were set, and I never did recover them.

In June 1934, I was assigned to the Pullman-Moscow Soil Erosion Experimental Area - some 50,000 acres of farm land - on rodent extermination work, and again CCC labor was used. When this work ended late in September, I was assigned twenty-five LEM's (local experience men) to cut and haul 300 cords of wood for fuel to heat the CCC camp at Moscow during the winter.

In 1935 I was allotted 50 CCC's to use on rodent-control work. We covered the entire 50,000-acre project, making close to a ninety percent kill of ground squirrels, as compared to about a seventy-five percent kill on 45,000 acres of the project in 1934. This work was discontinued in 1936, except for that done by individual farmers who were provided the poison grain at a very low cost.

I assisted in construction of the first Soil Conservation Camp (SCS-I-1) in 1934, and worked out of that camp for six years when I was transferred to Weiser, Idaho, to help build a new camp there in 1939. I spent two years there and then returned to Moscow for another year, until 1942, when the CCC's were called in the Army and the CCC camps were all disbanded.

While on annual (terminal) leave, my wife and I went to Coeur d'Alene to contact the Forest Service relative to a job. There I saw Howard Drake, the logging engineer with whom I had become acquainted on the Coeur d'Alene in 1912, and met Supervisor Clarence O. Strong and also William W. Larsen, who had taken my place at West Yellowstone when I resigned there in 1925.

It was agreed that I should report for work at the expiration of my leave on June 30, 1942, when I would be assigned to scale long logs at the Blue Creek landing for the Ohio Match Company, who were cutting several million feet of white pine way back on the North Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River. Virgil Moody was the Ranger in charge of the Ohio Match Company sale, and as senior scaler I worked under him, as did William H. Pruitt, another experienced scaler. Part of our job was to break in the new men who were hired. Two of the young leads we were training that summer were Terry Payne and Edward Slusher. By this time the Army was taking men right and left, and both Payne and Slusher left that summer for military service. Slusher had become a very good scaler and had been assigned to a Russelele and Pugh sale on LaTour Creek where John Stroble was gyppo logging the area. When Slusher left I was sent to do the scaling at this camp. At Christmas time the logging operations shut down for the winter and I was put on furlough for three months.

When Paul McGrew, Area Conservationist for eastern Washington, learned that I was on furlough from the Forest Service until April 10, he hired me to relieve Engineer Joe Blue at Colvilele, as Blue was leaving for military service. My work that winter consisted mainly of hydraulic engineering problems, such as water table measurements and records, cooperation with the U.S. Weather Bureau in recording streamflow, monthly reports on snowfall, etc. The Colvilele district had a very serious drainage problem as the Colevillee River flooded the valley on both sides from Addy, Washington to Kettle Falls. There were many low places where the peat subsoil had burned out and left depressions of from five or six acres to as much as sixty acres, from which there was no outlet for natural drainage. I used dynamite by the propagation method for blasting out drainage ditches, and accomplished the drainage of something over 300 acres which otherwise could not have been farmed the following summer season.

*****

On April 10, 1943, I reported back to the Forest Service at Coeur d'Alene, and was assigned to another Russell and Pugh sale on Beauty Creek drainage. I had good quarters in the old Beauty Creek CCC camp, part of which was occupied by a gyppo outfit logging for Russell and Pugh and bossed by a man named Bob Woods. Mr. Woods and his wife owned a sizable tract of land near Clarkia, Idaho, on which there was a large amount of merchantable timber. Woods had logged off his timber as well as some purchased from the Forest Service, but had made no attempt at brush disposal on either his own or national forest land. The Ranger made a report on the sale and Woods was required to pile and burn the brush on Government land. The State Fire Protective Association pronounced his private-land slash a menace to the forests, and made him burn his brush. This entire deal cost Woods considerable money. He was always "ferninst the Government" after that deal, and the men he hired were generally about his type - very much "to the left," I would say. I always had difficulty in getting complete compliance with the terms of the timber sale contract from Woods and his men; however, Supervisor Strong, Bill Larsen and Logging Engineer Drake gave me their full support, and eventually very good compliance was secured.

The contract required that all logs be scaled in the woods before being hauled to the landing, where they were dumped from the trucks into the lake. Woods had one logging truck driver who had driven logging trucks in the woods at Green River, Wyoming. He was so crooked he could not holed ajob there anymore, so had come to Coeur d'Alene and hired out to Russell and Pugh. He was a good driver and could manage some terrific loads of logs, but otherwise, he was "just simply nasty" for me to get along with on the sale area.

I had to drive from five to seven miles up the hill to work every day. One morning I stopped to talk to one of the loggers who was skidding logs, and while there I heard a logging truck coming down the hill. It was "Jackson Hole Monty" with a good, big load of nice logs. I flagged him down to examine the logs, as I knew he would try to pull something if he thought he could get away with it. Sure enough, the logs had been loaded from a deck where the jammer was skidding in fresh logs, and to save moving the jammer to load Monty's truck with scaled logs, he had been loaded up with the unscaled logs just skidded in.

Monty did not like being stopped, and was very disagreeable while I was scaling his load. I had them all scaled and was putting the "US" stamp on the rear end of the load while standing on a long log near the top some twelve feet high, when Monty started the truck. This threw me off balance and I had to jump down on the hard road, which gave me an awful jolt. I could feel something like a knife cutting into my groins and abdomen. I sat on a log by the roadside for a while, and when the pain eased up a little I went on up the road and tried to scale some more logs. But I got sicker all the time and could not stoop over, so told another truck driver that I was going to camp and for him to stop there when he came down with his load and I would scale the logs there.

I had to drive about five miles downhill to camp and nearly ran off the road several times, as I was very dizzy and sick. I drove the last two miles with the car in low gear, traveling about six or seven miles an hour. When I reached camp, my wife came out to see why I had returned so early. When she opened the car door I fell to the ground and passed out. She got help from the camp cookhouse and I was put to bed. From there on I only know what they told me afterward.

This all happened the day before Thanksgiving, 1943. I was taken to Dr. Barclay's Hospital at Coeur d'Alene, where I was "hanging bar my eyebrows" between life and death for over a week. Dr. Barclay notified the Coeur d'Alene Forest office and several of the personnel came to see me and gave blood for transfusions, so I got some real forestry blood in my veins that time, eh? I was so far gone I did not recognize any of these visitors.

On January 20, 1944, I was moved to Spokane to be with my daughter, who was a registered nurse. I gradually recovered and the last week in April went back to Coeur d'Alene to see about returning to work, but Mr. Strong told me I would have to have a certificate from the doctor regarding the condition of my health before they could put me back to work. The doctor said "nix," so that was "it" for me. I have been retired now for nearly seventeen years, and have never been as well as I was before this sickness.

I look back over my years in the Service with many fond memories of the fine group of men, with very few exceptions, whom I have me and associated with, and hope to greet many of them by means of this narrative, if not in person. The years of our lives go swiftly by ands, from where I sit, the sun is approaching the western horizon and I can see the Everlasting Twilight. The Old Man with the whiskers and scythe is standing in the shadows, just waiting for my number to come up, when I will be on my way to the place where Forest Rangers will not longer fight forest fires.

Ranger Meeting at Deadwood, S.D., March 1907. Front Row, left to right, 1, Unknown; 2. Fred Shields; 3, Theo. Shoemaker; 4, Joseph Conlon; 5. Ed Clark; Frank T. "Cap" Smith; 7. Louis Knowles; 8. Clyde Leavitt; 9. William Wiehe; Middle Row, left to right, 1. McDuffy; 2. George Smith; 3, Frank Thompson; 4. William Poe; 5. Robert Peltz; 6. John Murdock; 7, Carl Peterson; 8. W. A..Donaldson; 9. James Corner; 10. C. A. Ballinger; 11, Leo F. Kneippe; 12. H. C, Neal; 13. Ed M. Hamilton; Back Row, left to right, 1, McNabb; 2. William F. Hill; 3. Butterfield; 4. Dave Hilton; 5. Julius Gundlach; 6. George F. Pollack; 7. W. J. Hall; 8. A. L. Lynn; 9. Standish Smith; 10. Homer Reed; 11. James Dougherty.