Early Days in the Forest Service Volume 3

EARLY DAYS IN THE FOREST SERVICE
By John F. Preston

The reason for my early interest in forestry is still very clear in my mind. About 1900, the "Youths' Companion" was an influential family magazine and was a regular visitor in our home. The "Youths' Companion" published a story with Gifford Pinchot's picture, telling about his appointment to head the Bureau of Forestry of the Department of Agriculture and something about what forestry involved. That decided me to study forestry.

I was raised in a prairie country and was accustomed to working on a farm, but the appeal of the forest, even though I knew little about it except through reading, was too strong to resist. I went to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1901, expecting to get preliminary training and then transfer to Yale University for the professional training, but before that happened Filibert Roth started a forestry school at Ann Arbor and was later ably assisted by Walter Mulford, so I stayed through to 1907.

My first employment in the Forest Service was during the summer of 1906 as a student assistant at $25 a month. I joined a party in the Ozarks of southern Missouri under the leadership of Sam J. Record. The crew consisted of myself and one other boy whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. (Francis M. Patton of Virginia) We callipered thick stands of scrub oak until we were dizzy counting. I don't know how many stand tables we made, but the greater part of the summer was devoted to nothing else, unless I might mention a losing fight with red bugs or "chiggers."

1907

In the spring of 1907, I became a full fledged forest assistant at a salary of $l,000 per year. I reported to Washington during June of that year and with a number of other new entrants into the Forest Service, was given some brief preliminary training. I remember meeting Charlie Judd at that time and was with him perhaps ten days or two weeks, and while I have known of his work and followed his career since then, chance never brought us together again. I read of his death only a few months ago. Sam Record again guided my first forestry efforts in the Forest Service. A tree study of western red cedar was started under his direction. I was one of several young foresters who were assigned to different parts of the range of this tree. My territory was the State of Washington with the exception of the northeast corner. It was later reduced to the Cascade Mountains, but it was still a rather large territory to cover within a limited time of a few months and expect to come out with an estimate of volume and a report of the dendrological and silvicultural characteristics of the species. It was one of those "wild goose chases" which fortunately the Forest Service realized after a period of about two months and stopped the work.

I remember old Major Sheller (D.B. Sheller) at Wenatchee, Washington, who was the first Forest Supervisor whom I met. He, with three or four Rangers was trying to administer a territory of several million acres, which, I believe, was known as the Yakima Division of the Washington National Forest. Major Sheller was much interested in my assignment, and incidentally, he tried to get some advice from me. "Ah," he said, "so you came from Washington? I would like to show you a letter which I have just received from Washington signed by Mr. W.T. Cox. Do you know him?" The letter was a request for a revision of the timber estimates on the several million acres of National Forest under his supervision. "Mr. Cox must know," he continued, "that I cannot go out and cruise the timber myself, and that my force of Rangers is too small to expect very much help from that source. So, how can I revise the estimates, what would you advise?" I hesitated, so he continued. "I am going into a trance. I shall shut my eyes and think deeply of the changes which might have taken place in timber volumes during the six months since I made the former estimate. When I come out of the trance, I shall make a few slight changes in the figures and send a revised tabulation to Mr. Cox. Do you think that will satisfy Mr. Cox?" I told him that I felt sure that his proposed procedure would be entirely acceptable, and so far as I ever heard, it was.

He gave me some fatherly advice. He told me frankly that, in his opinion, I was on a wild goose chase, and advised me to choose summer resorts and places of interest as my stopping places through the Cascade Mountains. Said he, "You can get just as much information about western red cedar from the places which are interesting to see and where the hotel accommodations are good as you can from some place where you have to sleep under a spruce tree." I followed his advice. I did, however, cross the Cascade Mountains twice, once on foot along the right-of-way of the Milwaukee Railroad then being built through Snoqualmie Pass; and the second time, with a pack horse outfit up the Natches River and into western Washington at the back end of Mount Rainier Park. Incidentally, I took time to see if there was any western red cedar in Mount Rainier Park. I found myself, during the latter days of August, 1907, at the little town of Sumas in western Washington, on the Canadian line, where Burt Kirkland was acting Forest Supervisor. At this point I received a wire from Mr. Record which was one of very few communications I had had from him since leaving Wenatchee, to the effect that I was to close up shop, make out a report, and be prepared for further assignment. I did this (in a voluminous report) and received a wire shortly afterward to report to Supervisor Todd, Neihart, Montana, for timber sale work. I arrived in Neihart, Montana, the latter part of September 1907, and there followed a series of events and experiences some of which are, I think, well worth recounting.

The branch train from Great Falls arrived at Neihart, Montana, after dark, which in the fall of the year meant about six o'clock. Neihart proved to be a silver mining town with a population capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 people, but with an actual population at that time of perhaps 50. Montana had a great many silver towns in a similar or worse condition than Neihart, - plenty of mines, abundance of ore, ample refining machinery, homes, schools, stores, all of the physical structure of civilization. One serious defect in the man-made economy had caused life to dim and all but go out; the price of silver (undoubtedly caused by over production) was insufficient to allow the mining industry to operate and all was silent and ghostly where once had been noise and intense activity. The something which gave the life impetus to this physical hulk of civilization was gone and only the corpse remained.

Men built this town, but they seemed to be utterly unable to keep the breath of life in it. Perhaps we know as little about life and death in the field of economics as we do in biology. There was a great deal of Neihart, physically speaking; it stretched along the canyon for about three miles and was never more than 1/4 mile wide at any point. With the collapse of the mining industry, the population had dwindled to about what could be supported by the business of raising cattle and sheep, the production and shipment of smelter poles and a little summer tourist trade.

I sought the one little hotel and boarding house in the town and was content to look up the Forest Supervisor on the following morning. The train stayed all night in Neihart and returned to Great Falls the next morning, leaving about 8 o'clock. I found the Supervisor's Office about a mile up the canyon from the little hotel, located in a private residence. I remember the train was pulling out as I walked up the street.

Upon arriving at the office, I found that I was a little in advance of the office hours and had to wait for the arrival of the clerk. I introduced myself and found there was no one in the office except the clerk and she informed me that the Supervisor, Mr. Todd, was on the train leaving town that morning bound for a two-week's elk hunting trip in the Sun River. I inquired if he had left any instructions for me. There were none although we found a telegram on his desk from Washington informing him that I was reporting to him on this date for timber sale work. I searched the files to try and find where the timber sales business was located, because the young lady who was acting as clerk could give me very little help.

Fortunately, about the middle of the afternoon, Ranger Guy Myers rode into town over the divide from the Judith River, saddle horse and pack horse. The pack horse was carrying a deer. Myers had a little timber business and he invited me to return with him. He helped me to get a saddle horse and before 10 o'clock that night I was over on the middle fork of the Judith River at a little cabin that measured about 12 x 18, camping with Guy Myers.

The next two or three days we cruised and marked timber for a little sawmill and made up a contract on the proper forms ready for the Supervisor's signature. The limit on sales without advertisement was $100, but this sale came well within that limit. The telephone line had just been completed from Neihart to the Judith River. About the third day a telephone call came from Neihart from George Cecil, telling me to return to Neihart. Cecil was one of the inspectors working under Mr E.A. Sherman's direction out of Missoula, Montana. As I recall, Mr. Sherman, as Chief Inspector, had a force consisting of G.H. Cecil, F.A. Silcox, R.Y. Stuart and Paul G. Redington and I think C.H. Adams was one of the inspectors. Cecil told me upon my arrival at Neihart that he had been sent there to fire Todd, and that he would like me to stay in town and help him gather the evidence. This I did, with the result that when Supervisor Todd returned from his hunting trip he had a telegram from Washington suspending him and appointing Cecil acting Supervisor. The suspension was properly followed up and Mr. Todd was either dismissed or forced to resign. This incident proved valuable to me, since it established my confidence in the civil service system and proved that drastic personnel action could be taken when necessary.

Later I had a great deal of experience in handling personnel under civil service rules and never once failed to get action when the written evidence supported the recommendation.

The real need for immediate help in the timber business was found to be on the Snowy Mountains. The office at Neihart had two National Forests under its direction - the Little Belt National Forest, which was the country immediately surrounding Neihart, and the Snowy Mountain National Forest.

1908

The early part of 1908 was spent on the Little Belts and Snowies as already described. Then about April 15 I was transferred to northern Idaho. Newport, Washington, was the headquarters of the Priest River National Forest, afterwards known as the Kaniksu. Rudo Fromme, a graduate of the Yale Forest School, was the Forest Supervisor in charge. Northern Idaho was a wonderful place in 1908 - a veritable paradise of woods and lakes. That was before too much of the country had been laid waste by logging and fires. The Priest River Valley from the Great Northern Railroad to its northern extremity at the Canadian line was a dense, mostly mature forest of white pine, hemlock and white fir. The road from Priest River to Priest Lake was nothing but a winding trail through the woods, and the old stage coach operated from one chuck hole to the next. The distance was about 25 miles, and it was a long, hard day's trip.

Timber sales had already begun in the Priest River Valley and the Forest Service was struggling even then with the problem of whether or not the cut-over land should be opened to settlement or should be retained for timber growth. In the years which followed, this problem was one of the most urgent. Soils men, timber men, and farmers struggled over it and in the end the farmers, as usually happens, won the battle. A great deal of that heavy timber land was opened to settlement under the Act of June 11, 1906. I have not been back in that country in recent years, but I am sure it was a mistake to try to make farms out of land like that. The cost of clearing was too high and the chances for a livelihood from the products of the soil after clearing were too slim. It was wonderful timber producing land, but poor farm land.

I was married in June 1908, and after helping Fromme with timber sale business, I returned to Great Falls August 1, 1908. Again the assignment was in connection with the sale of smelter poles in the Little Belt Mountains and to the Little Rockies Division. The Little Rockies is an outlying island of forest-covered mountains adjoining the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northcentral Montana. It is now part of the Lewis and Clark National Forest, with headquarters at Great Falls. I spent three weeks working with Ranger Hart on the timber problems of these mountains. The period was from August 20 to September 7.

In the fall of 1908, I had a three months' assignment in Washington, in what was known as the "Bull Pen." It was a big room in the Atlantic Building where a dozen or more raw recruits like myself were assigned desks; current correspondence was shoved at us with instructions to prepare letters in reply. There was a room full of stenographers next door and there was no way to get letters written except to go in there to dictate amid the hammering of a dozen or more typewriters. Mr. Pinchot's rules, or somebody's, required that the letters be dictated. Some were short and some were long. Some were made for the signature of the man in charge of timber sales, which might have been Homans or Clapp or Carter; or they might be for the signature of Cox or Cooper or Spring or Sterling or W.L. Hall or for the signature of the Chief himself. If they were the Chief's letters, they had to run the gauntlet and be initialed by each and every man between the poor fellow in the "Bull Pen" and G.P. himself. Usually, each man who initialed required some changes in the letter, and it was indeed a feat long to be remembered if a letter could be sent through for the Chief's signature without change. I never had that experience. I don't know whether anybody else ever did or not, but I doubt it.

In the fall of 1908, the inspection system was changed to field administration. Heretofore, the administrative line had been direct from the Supervisor to Washington. Field Districts (later called Regions) were instituted. District One took in the Montana-north Idaho country, and I was assigned to this District with headquarters at Missoula. Bill Greeley was the District Forester, with Gus Silcox as associate. Bert Cooper was in charge of the timber, (I have forgotten whether it was called silviculture or management at that time). Dave Mason was his first assistant; Joe Warner, Joe Fitzwater and I were traveling representatives. Dick Rutledge was there in charge of lands, and C.H. Adams (locally known as "Cow-Horse Adams") was in charge of grazing. I soon realized that I was in a traveling job. Arriving in Missoula on December 13, I was sent almost immediately to the Pryor Mountains in Montana east of Red Lodge, with instructions to straighten out "Old Man" Town who was complaining about poor treatment in connection with his sales of timber in the National Forest. A part of my job was to make a timber management plan for the Pryor Mountains. I am not sure but that I made a record on that trip; between December 15 and Christmas morning when I returned to Missoula, I visited the Pryor Mountains, which was an outlying range of mountains adjoining the Crow Indian Reservation consisting of about 6 or 8 townships. There were some rough estimates of the timber in existence and I made some more, and during that 10-day period, timber sale difficulties were straightened out, and I returned to Missoula with a management plan for the Pryor Mountains timber which met all the needs for a good many years thereafter; perhaps it is even effective today.

1909-1910

The office of timber management or Silviculture to which I was attached, was organized on the basis of Cooper and Mason in charge, and Warner, Fitzwater, and I as traveling representatives. I was assigned to the forests of eastern Montana. My job was to look after the timber sales, particularly from the standpoint of the silvicultural systems and to see that the marking was brought up to standard. In practice I also had the job of running out sale boundaries, appraising the stumpage, and drawing up sale contracts.

The middle part of January, I reported to Mr. V. Giffert Lantry, Supervisor of the Absaroka National Forest at Livingston who had requested some timber sale assistance. Livingston and the surrounding country in January of any year is not likely to be a very delightful place to do field work. This particular January I remember very vividly because of the penetrating cold. The particular sale which I was called upon to visit was located on the north end of the Crazy Mountains division which was about 40 or 50 miles due north of Livingston. After a few preliminary discussions with, Mr. Lantry I went to the town of Big Timber, took stage north, and walked 12 miles to Ranger Durgan's camp, then by saddle horse to the north end. The temperature during those two or three days' travel was at least 40° below zero. Most of my route lay along exposed ranges but fortunately a part of the way I traveled through the timber. I alternated between walking and riding and thus succeeded in keeping up circulation so that no part of me froze completely. In due time I arrived at the mouth of Cottonwood Creek, got in touch with the Ranger, and together we rode some 5 or 6 miles up the canyon to the sale area. The Supervisor had been making 100-dollar sales to local sawmill men operating under the name of Mosback and Eicke. The snow was about four feet deep on the sale area. The sawmill was a little one-horse portable affair which would cut, when pushed, perhaps 3,000 feet in 10 hours. The camp was one of those combinations where one-half of the building was devoted to housing of the horses and the other half a combination bunkhouse and cookhouse. The door, I remember, was so small that one had to bend almost double, before entering. When I found what the proposition was, my egotism, if I had any, was rapidly deflated. What Mosback and Eicke wanted was another 50,000-foot sale, which at the appraised stumpage price of $3.00 made it an advertised sale. The Supervisor had no Rangers sufficiently experienced to handle even so simple a proposition. My job was to lay out the sale boundaries, mark the timber, make out the sale contract, or rather the application, and then return to Livingston and help the Supervisor fix up the necessary papers for advertisement and arrange, as a rule, for the privilege of "advance cutting" since logging must proceed. All of this was a very simple process. I remember the sale application read something like this: "We, Peter Mosback and Peter Eicke, partners, doing business under the firm name and style of Mosback and Eicke, hereby apply for the privilege of cutting 50,000 feet of standing timber, alive and dead, etc." All of this expedition to the sale area and return to Livingston required something like about 10 days. The next two weeks were spent on the Little Belts again (part of the Jefferson National Forest, later the Lewis and Clark) mostly marking timber on existing sales. This was interesting and worthwhile work. The Rangers of those days knew only a little about what forestry was all about, but they were anxious to learn. I worked with several different men. The temperature continued cold, but the woods is the best place in the world to work in the wintertime. No biting wind can penetrate the shelter of the trees and bodily activity keeps up the circulation. If one is properly dressed, there is no time of year so suitable as the winter for such activities of the forester as cruising, running lines, or marking timber for removal. Many years later I cruised timber in northern Canada during midwinter on four or more feet of snow when the temperature must have been at least 30° below for weeks at a time. All of the necessary activities of running lines, locating corners, and keeping notes were successfully carried on. Tent cams pitched on top of the snow are quite comfortable. Much of the brush and windfall is covered by the snow and there are no insect pests. Dog teams are very useful in moving camp on the snow, but even if such luxury is not available, there are many advantages of winter work for foresters.

Upon my return to Livingston I found a letter from Missoula asking me to report to the Supervisor of the Helena National Forest for assistance with a timber sale on the Big Belt Division. My assignment, as contemplated, was to be for several months. I went to Helena and interviewed Supervisor Dwight Bushnell. The purchaser was a mining company which was cutting mining timbers; the Ranger was having difficulty making the company live up to the timber sale regulations. The company had refused to pile brush or to comply with the utilization requirements and were pretty slow in making their payments. Bushnell wanted me to go to the Big Belt, live in a tent on the sale area, take charge of the sale and see that the mining company complied with the Government regulations. Several months' assignment on a policemen's job, on work which could and should have been done by the local Ranger, was about the last straw. I told Mr. Bushnell that I wanted to consult with my superior officers in Missoula before accepting the assignment. I got on the train and went to Missoula and expressed myself rather forcibly to Mr. Cooper. This was about February 15. Mr. Cooper was, fortunately, sympathetic and after a conference with Mr. Greeley, I was assigned to the Bitterroot with headquarters at Missoula. The next several months I worked under the direction of W.W. White on various assignments, and the most important of which was the old A.C.M. Lick Creek sale on the Bitterroot. During this assignment I lived in a scaler's cabin with my wife and had some very interesting and exciting experiences.

My notes show that we left Missoula March 21 and returned on April 7, an absence of a little over two weeks, but at the time and in retrospect the days spent on this assignment assumed much larger significance than the calendar limitations would seem to account for. In the first place, it was a camping trip to the woods, and such trips had been all to few so far; we took our camp outfit and food supplies with us. In the second place, the work was pleasant and worthwhile and we met and enjoyed many interesting people.

When the train left Missoula on Sunday afternoon bound for Hamilton, we were surprised to find that our party, in addition to myself and wife, consisted of Bert Cooper representing Silviculture at Missoula, E.E. "Nick" Carter representing the same office in Washington, and G.B. MacDonald then in charge of planting at Missoula, later and for years identified with the forest school at Ames, Iowa.

Hamilton boasted of only one hotel, the Ravalli, which was really first class; it was full, and it looked for a time as though we might have to get out our camp beds. Finally the manager turned over a child's bed to the one lady of our party and the men slept in a room above an adjoining saloon. We dined that evening in splendor or rather amidst splendor. Our woods clothes very illy fitted the grand furniture and decorations and white table linen of the dining room in the Ravalli; we felt more at ease a little later, however, when a serious attempt to order a grand dinner from the imposing menu card disclosed the fact that there was nothing left but veal stew, potatoes, and boiled onions. The difficulties and the incongruity of our situation finally broke down all formalities; the whole party became well acquainted and were highly entertained.

Next morning (very early) the whole party left on the A.C.M. logging train, bag, baggage, and passengers, on the empty flat cars which were enroute to camp to be loaded with logs, - western yellow pine. As an observation car, a "flat" can hardly be improved upon; there was plenty of scenery - the sunrise and the fading starlight, snow and frost on pine and fir and the grand spectacle of distant snow-covered mountains. No one became seasick with the swaying motion of the cars on the uncertain roadbed, and we arrived at the company's camp about 10 a.m. That was the end of our transportation; the government cabin (and timber) was about 2 miles further, but we had lots of help with the baggage.

Mr. and Mrs. White were at the cabin when we arrived. Claget Sanders was there too; he was the scaler; we became better acquainted with him later. He could tell many a weird tale of his experiences in the mountains. Just a short mile or so from that very cabin he had (two years before) stumbled upon the skeleton of a man and alongside him a note book which told of his last days alone in the woods with a broken hip. The victim was within sight of ranch houses below him; he could see the lights at night, but he couldn't get word of his plight and he died a slow lingering death as attested by his daily entries until oblivion captured one more human being from life's stage.

Our visitors left next morning, but life presented never a dull moment at the Lick Creek cabin. There was the daily occupation of marking trees for cutting and studying the new system of logging being tried out on the company land and proposed for use on the National Forest. C.H. Gregory, the big Forest Service lumberman, and Earl Tanner, then a Ranger but afterwards a lumberman, spent several days with us. Lumberjacks came and went and soon the sounds of "Timber!" rang out in the woods all around the cabin. The very first night, with not less than seven people sleeping in the bunks and on the floor of the small cabin, Mr. White became exasperated with the ravages of a pack rat and, in the middle of the night, blazed away at him with his sixshooter. As I remember now, he failed to hit the rat, but did succeed in rousing all the sleepers.

During part of this time I was in charge of this timber sale and it happened that during this period the company started donkey logging. The equipment had been set up, the company given permission to try the equipment, but without commitment by the Forest Service as to the conditions under which it would be permitted. The decision depended upon the amount of damage which the ground skidding of logs would entail. The company had previously been using donkey logging on their own lands and I had watched the results without being able to visualize how the method could be applied on the National Forest without ruining the growing stock which was being left. The machines were set up, the fallers went through the woods falling the trees; the system to be used was the dragging in of entire trees; limbing or bucking to be done at the landing. As the ranking officer in charge, I decided that limbing and bucking must be done in the woods before skidding. I reported to the logging superindendent (Mr. Blackmore) whom I found at the landing where the logs were being loaded on cars. I introduced myself, explained my responsibility and gave him my decision. Unfortunately, we had never previously met, and he sized me up as a young upstart who probably could be bluffed; he very cooly informed me that I would have to go to Hamilton and take up such matters with the main office, that he was there to carry out the logging as planned, not to change it. This had me stumped, but I recovered quickly and informed Mr. Blackmore that I was not going to Hamilton, that I was giving my instructions to him, and that tomorrow morning I would stop operations and seize all the logs if he failed to follow instructions. I had talked pretty big, but I was worried; that afternoon I walked 10 miles to get to a telephone to inform Supervisor White of the crisis which had been reached on the sale area. Fortunately, Mr. White backed me up. I returned to the cabin and waited with considerable anxiety to see what would happen. I did not then fully appreciate the power of the Federal Government. At daybreak next morning the fallers went through the woods and proceeded to limb the trees and buck them into log lengths. Evidently the logging superintendent had also telephoned to his superiors. Anyway, after that the logging proceeded without serious friction.

Toward the end of my assignment to the Bitterroot, which was along in June 1909, I learned that I had been acting in the capacity of deputy Forest Supervisor but I had not known it and so far as I was able to learn, Supervisor White also did not know it. Incidentally, I have never worked under more pleasant conditions than I encountered during the three or four months' assignment on the Bitterroot and never worked under a better Supervisor than W.W. White.

In June 1909, I was sent to Red Lodge, Montana, as Supervisor to the Beartooth National Forest which included the rough high-mountain country northeast of the Yellowstone Park and the outlying Pryor Mountains for which I had already made a timber management plan in December 1908. I succeeded Mr. E.C. Russell who was a very lovable gentleman, a pioneer cowman who was very popular with the local people. While the timber buyers and the stockmen would do business with the new supervisor, they absolutely shunned all social-contacts. My wife, therefore, found Red Lodge a rather difficult place to live. At that time it had a population of about 5,500 people of which perhaps 5,000 were coal miners and people directly connected with the coal mining business. I received the princely salary as Forest Supervisor of $1200 per annum. The Government did not pay the expenses of transferring household goods from Missoula to Red Lodge and in order to carry on my work I had to buy a saddle horse and a pack horse. As a matter of fact, I bought two saddle horses so that my wife could travel with me since social life in Red Lodge seemed to leave us rather isolated. We had many delightful trips through the beautiful Beartooth Mountain country.

I found that the problem of handling the range was largely a problem of handling the owners of the stock and this, plus the supervision of timber sales where mining timbers were the chief product, plus fire protection; was the job of National Forest administration on the Beartooth. Sheep ranged in the summertime on the high plateaus. The plateaus were at an elevation of 9500 to a little over 10,000 feet. The grazing season was supposed to be from July 1 to September 30, but the sheep could rarely go in earlier that July 10 and often had to come out by the middle of September.

The trail to Cook City from Red Lodge led up the main canyon of Rock Creek, which was a box canyon practically to its head; the trail then zigzagged up through the rocks to the top of the plateau, across by Mirror Lake into Wyoming and then up a tributary of the Shoshone River to the town of Cook City at the extreme northeast corner of Yellowstone Park. This trail and all of its windings became very familiar, it was usually a two-days' trip from Red Lodge to Cook City and over part of the distance the going was so treacherous that the horses were led as much as they were ridden. I mention this because years afterward in Pennsylvania I picked up a magazine in a dentist's office and as I idly fingered through the pages I saw an advertisement for a dude ranch on Rock Creek on the main Red Lodge-Cook City highway. I could hardly believe that a highway would be built over such a route, but I have learned that it is a fact. Such a highway must be cut out of solid rock for a good part of the distance; it traverses an area which could only be traveled (without very expensive snow removal) for a period of about two months out of the 12, or in most favorable seasons, not more than three months. The road must have cost at least a million dollars. It is undoubtedly a beautiful scenic highway and I understand that it is one of the most popular entrances to the Yellowstone National Park, but one wonders why so costly a road with such a limited period of use should be built. I hope, someday, to take a ride over this highway.

Passing over most of the events which altogether form a very happy chapter in my life, we come to the summer of 1910 when the sky was filled with smoke from the fires which increased in intensity in western Montana and Idaho. I must recite one experience in firefighting on the Beartooth. I remember during July the smoke was so dense in Red Lodge that frequently we could hardly see across the street. But the Beartooth escaped until on August 21 some careless camper up the west fork of Rock Creek let his fire get away. In a few hours we had fire from the creek almost to the top of the mountain. The next few days was a period of excitement and intense activity. I have forgotten how many men we finally put on this fire, but I think it was about 50. I can't say that the organization was very good or that the technique of firefighting was all that it should have been. I remember mostly the difficulties which surrounded firefighting activities of that period. I know that we did not have the fire under complete control when the fight ended on August 24 when about 6 inches of snow covered the fire. Then our difficulties really began. The firefighters had to be paid and there were no facilities for meeting such an emergency, at least on an eastern Montana Forest. Payrolls could be made out and sent to Missoula and checks would come back to the firefighters but a large number of firefighters demanded cash and the cash had to be advanced by the Supervisor. I threw into it what cash I could muster, added to it what I could borrow from the bank, borrowed about $200 from Sam Dana, who happened to visit my headquarters about that time, and finally paid off all of those firefighters. I suspect a good many of them never did 15 cents worth of work, but our time records were not the best and in order to avoid trouble and perhaps personal injury, we gave a good many of them the benefit of the doubt and paid them for firefighting when we were almost certain they had been loafing on the job. Later the firefighting was organized so that such difficulties were not encountered and Supervisors were not called upon to advance the money. But in 1910 I know that my experience on the Beartooth was repeated on many National Forests further west where the problem of firefighting was multiplied manyfold.

While on the Beartooth I was visited by C.H. Adams, in charge of grazing at Missoula; Wallace Perrine, his assistant; R.Y. Stuart, who was then in Washington; S.T. Dana, also from Washington; R.H. Rutledge, in charge of lands at Missoula; and Mr. Greeley.

On the forest as a part of my staff were Lee Stratton, afterwards a fiscal agent at Ogden; D.R. Brewster., later nationally known as a consulting forester; and my staff of Rangers, chief among whom were H.B. "Doc" Yerkes; Daly Johnson; the two Abbots, one of whom, Arthur Abbot, was later Forest Supervisor on the Helena and Cabinet; Hosea Parker, Charley Jordan, and Frank Clark. Daly Johnson had a famous little sorrel mare which was capable of doing stunts which I have never seen before nor since. Upon one occasion I was riding with him through the timber up the west fork of Rock Creek. A storm had blown a tree across the trail which came just below the horse's withers. I was in the lead and guided my horse up the mountain side to get past the obstruction. Daly got off his horse, stepped under the tree, said some magic words to his sorrel mare who got down on her knees and crawled under that tree. I have never seen that done by any other horse even in a circus.

Frank Clark and Hosea Parker originated, I think, one famous story. They were on a camping trip and neither one liked to cook so they made an agreement by which they flipped a coin to see who took the job of cooking while the other wrangled the horses. The agreement was that when the other one first complained about the cooking, jobs were to be exchanged. Hosea Parker was the first cook and on the very first morning Frank Clark stuck his fork into the hot cakes and found that raw dough oozed out from the center. He said, "My God, Hosea, what do you mean by, by- - - (he remembered just in time, and continued), "giving me cream puffs for breakfast?" Needless to say Hosea continued as cook. I have heard that story several times since, told by foresters associated with old District One and I think it originated on the Beartooth.

One other story from the Beartooth. We had a famous expedition with Wallace Perrine to look up new range. We had quite an outfit of saddle horses and pack horses. Incidentally, on our trip we decided that we wanted to see the famous grasshopper glacier which occupied the upper slopes of a 12,000-foot mountain. According to legend, verified by reliable reports from many people, the ice of the glacier was filled with frozen grasshoppers. The theory was that a flight of grasshoppers had gotten caught and millions of them frozen into the ice. I wanted to see this glacier. The nearest approach was by means of Goose Lake. Our party arrived at Goose Lake about noon on a summer day. We threw the packs off our horses and started to get together a lunch and were then going to prepare camp to stay over night, intending to get an early start on foot next morning so as to see the glacier and return to the camp in a day's time. We looked about for firewood and found that we were above the timber line. There was nothing which could be used for fuel except the wooden posts which had been packed in, and which marked the corners of mining claims. Obviously we could not burn these so rather than face the discomforts of an over night camp without a fire, we decided not to see the glacier; we dropped down to lower country and camped, and solaced ourselves with some good trout fishing. I never did see the grasshopper glacier.

On this trip I took my father-in-law along; he wanted to be taken into country never before trod by white men. I doubt that we did that, but that mountain country was so rough and primitive that the imprint of either white or red man was very faint. We discovered, to our sorrow, that we had a balky pack horse, - Charley Jordan's old Plenticose, a large powerful black gelding. He only balked when the climbing was really tough. About 3:00 o'clock one afternoon, we were pushing our horses to get to the top of the next ridge before a threatening storm broke. Our route was through fire killed standing pole timber and we were sideswiping the hill in order to lessen the grade; there was no trail. At one point the horses had to take a steep pitch in order to reach the top of a big rock which marked a steep drop below. All of our horses made the climb (it was not really very bad) except old Plenticose, who balked. He pulled back and before we realized what was happening, he rolled end over end down the mountain and landed against a tree 50 yards below. We thought Plenticose has reached his Waterloo. We removed his pack and got him to his feet and, to our surprise, found that a few cuts and bruises were his only injuries. We put the pack right back on him and tried to lead him up past that rock with the added inducement of a big club and strong language. Plenticose was, however, determined and apparently had decided not to carry that load over that rock. He again balked and again rolled down the mountain about the same distance.

Only our extreme need for his services prevented us from dispatching him then and there. What we actually did was to put his pack on our saddle horse and lead him to the top of the ridge without a load, under which conditions he offered no objections to the trail. At the top of the ridge we again packed him and had no further trouble, but after that we tried to avoid difficult climbs. That night we camped in a big meadow. We hobbled several of the horses, including old Plenticose; next morning the horses were gone; we trailed them back to our previous camp over the route we had followed. Even when hobbled, that balky pack animal was willing to travel that uncertain trail to familiar and, perhaps, more palatable grass. Such are some of the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of horse flesh which add spice to the tale that is told, but discomforts of a mountain trip, which are not at all appreciated at the time.

In November 1910, I was transferred to Kalispell, Montana, as Supervisor of the Blackfeet National Forest. My salary was increased in connection with this move from $1200 to $1500 and the Government had meanwhile arranged to pay the expenses of moving household furniture. This was about the time when the Forest Service was being put on what was known as the "statutory roll." Previous to this time salaries were notfied by Congress but the "statutory roll" involved a limitation by Congress on the salaries to be attached to certain specified positions. I remember that the charge was accepted by the Forest Service with fear and misgiving, but the change improved my personal fortunes very materially because before I arrived at my new station in Kalispell the "statutory" salary of the Forest Supervisor's position at Kalispell had been fixed at $2000. I was, therefore, almost overcome by the sudden change.

Early in 1910, a Supervisor's meeting was held at Missoula. Gathered at the meeting was a mixture of the old and new regime. There were young foresters who had gone through forest schools and had been made Forest Supervisors, but there was a good sprinkling of oldtimers who were more or less hold-overs from the land office days. Such men as Haines from the Blackfeet, V. Giffert Lantry from the Absaroka, and Ballinger from those wild hills in South Dakota and extreme eastern Montana, the Slim Buttes, the Ekalaka, the Short Pines known as the Sioux National Forest. The meeting, which was held amidst howling blizzards which bore down upon us from Hellgate Canyon, was highly successful. I remember a rump session in which V. Giffert Lantry was the chief speaker. The subject of discussion was the necessity for a raise in salaries for Supervisors. Lantry and a number of others were in the habit of reinforcing their courage by frequent resort to strong drink. After a heated discussion at this rump session Lantry proposed that they go to Mr. Greeley and make a proposition to him to this effect: Mr. Greeley could either arrange for an increase in salaries or "use his influence to take the tax off of liquor." Needless to say, such a proposition was never made to Mr. Greeley. The rump session and all its good intentions died when the influence of the courage-giving liquor died out the morning after. I find in my notes that James T. Jardine talked at this meeting about the new system of "blanket herding of sheep." Afterwards, at a Ranger meeting at Hunters Hot Springs in eastern Montana April 1910, he talked on the same subject.

I must tell one more tale dating from this period. As a traveling timberman in 1908, I had gotten acquainted with the Ranger in charge of a district on the Absaroka south of Big Timber. He was a big, easygoing, slow talking Missourian, Bill Yates. I knew that Bill was not too conscientious in the performance of his duties. While I was Supervisor at Red Lodge, I met Bill one day at Big Timber and found out that he was staying in town most of the time. His station was 20 miles south and officially his job was at the station. "Bill," I said, "what are you going to do when the Supervisor comes around and asks to see your diary?" Bill replied without hesitation, "It's a darn poor Ranger who can't lose his diary."

1911

The job on the Blackfeet National Forest where I stayed from November 1910 to July 1, 1911, was to pick up the threads of administration and reestablish the business of the National Forest after the holocaust of the 1910 fires. Fires had burned thousands of square miles On the Blackfeet Forest, largely in inaccessible places, but not wholly. Large areas in the upper north fork country and in the Stillwater country had been laid waste. Even as late as February 1911, I found on the Stillwater burn, snags still smoking, sticking up through 5 feet of snow.

There were three famous characters on the Blackfeet National Forest: Bob McLaughlin, who was my deputy Supervisor, who succeeded me as Forest Supervisor and was afterwards state forester of Montana; Fred Herring, who was a Ranger at the Ant Hill Ranger Station along the Fortine River. He had been a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt in the Cuban Campaign. He was a friend and intense admirer of Roosevelt, and, incidentally, his wife was an excellent cook; this was fortunate, because Herring's station was an important stopping place. The third was Bill (W.C.) McCormick who was Ranger (or was it guard?) on the North Fork of the Flathead during the 1910 fires. His system of firefighting in 1910 was to put out all the fires that he could by himself or with the few guards assigned to his district and then when the fires got too big, ride to Belton, which was the nearest telephone and source of supplies, some 40 miles away, for help, gather a crew and equipment together, go back over the trail and to the fires. It is no wonder that the 1910 fires spread all over the country.

I went up the North Fork of the Flathead River during the winter of 1911. The entrance was through Glacier Park which had only that year been separated from the Blackfeet National Forest. The road ran from Belton on the Great Northern Railroad up past Lake McDonald over the hills and into the North Fork of the Flathead about halfway up; that is halfway from the Columbia Falls to the Canadian boundary. A farm settlement of pioneers had grown up on the Big Prairie up near the Canadian line. These settlers grew hay and vegetables and ran a little stock and somehow eked out an existence. There were, perhaps a dozen or 20 of them. When I went up the road horseback with Ranger McCormick the snow was perhaps two feet deep along the road. At one point we encountered a place where the snow was badly disturbed and a log which had evidently been across the road was lying in the timber alongside. The condition of the log and the unusual disturbance of the snow attracted my attention and I asked for an explanation. McCormick told me a story which I have often repeated as an example of lack of cooperation in the backwoods. The first settler who came out after a storm for mail and supplies found a tree across the road too large to allow his team and sleigh to pass so he got out, cut the log out of the tree and rolled it to one side, but after he had passed on his return trip with his load of supplies, he rolled the log back across the road. Each succeeding settler who passed this point rolled the log out and back again so as to give his neighbors no advantage of his activity. The Ranger had finally rolled the log so far into the woods that it could not be rolled back.

There was timber business on the Blackfeet as the National Forest was supplying logs to a bit mill in the Fortine Valley and there was some local grazing but the big job was organizing a fire protective system, building telephone lines and trails. I made one trip with Bob McLaughlin on skis up through the Stillwater burn where we encountered the burning snag which I previously mentioned. That was the first and only extended trip I ever made on skis and we almost didn't come out alive, but that is another story.

Along in May the snow was beginning to go off in the southern portions of the Blackfeet Forest and it was important that routes for new trails be located, so Bob McLaughlin and I started out with two saddle horses and two pack horses, intent upon reconnoitering the country preliminary to the building of trails and the locating of fire lookouts and telephone lines. Bob was a constant pipe smoker and he enjoyed smoking as much as anyone I ever knew. We packed our horses in the outskirts of Kalispell. It was the first trip of the season and the horses were not easy to pack. We struggled with the job but finally all was in order. We climbed into our saddles and started down the road. I lighted my pipe, intent upon the full enjoyment of the expedition, soon forgetting the annoying details of getting stubborn pack horses properly loaded. I noticed that Bob was not smoking. I advised him to light up and only then did I realize the difficult circumstances in which I was placed. He informed me that he had quit smoking. I knew I was in for it them. All went well until the middle of the second afternoon. We encountered windfall. We were attempting to keep along the ridge. It was a case of jumping windfall after windfall, leading pack horse and saddle horse. Bob was supposed to know the country and he was taking the lead. Night finally overtook us and in spite of my supplications that we drop the ridge, he insisted that we must push forward. Finally I took my two horses and dropped down the ridge in spite of advice to the contrary. Bob soon joined me and we camped that night in a spruce thicket, tying our horses to trees and giving them only a handfull of oats which we fortunately had with us.

Next morning we had to wait several hours while our horses fed on a grassy knoll so that when dusk again overtook us on the third day we had only reached the Stillwater River; we had intended to be far beyond it. Again we met difficulties because Bob was rather inflexible, to say the least, and he was the guide. The Stillwater River at this point is a slow, sluggish stream, perhaps 20 or 30 feet wide, with steep sloping mud banks and swimming water in the middle. It was obviously a difficult stream to cross so I inquired if there was not abridge. Bob admitted that there was abridge 3 miles below but insisted that we must cross here. He undertook to make the first crossing. The front feet of his horse entered the water but slipped on the mud banks, the horse reared, plunged, the pack horse pulled back, broke loose and ran off through the willow brush. We chased the pack horse and finally got him in tow once more. This time I took the lead; my horses were perhaps a little gentler than his. I coaxed my saddle horse into the stream and succeeded in leading the pack horse in. We swam across and all was well until the farther bank was reached; my horse could not get up. It fell in the attempt. I dismounted, unfastened the cinch buckle which, fortunately, was used to fasten the cinch to the saddle, heaved the saddle over the horse's head and on to the bank, but in doing so dropped the bridle of my saddle horse and the lead rope of the pack horse and before I knew it both of them had returned to the farther bank. I was left on one side with a saddle and Bob had himself and four horses on the opposite bank. I can tell the remaining part of the story in much shorter time than it actually took to negotiate that crossing, but finally we got all four horses across the stream, but in doing so both riders were wet from head to foot, the pack horses had succeeded in getting most of the packs wet and on top of that, rain was steadily adding to our misery. Our next objective was a Ranger cabin about 3 miles up the trail and we made for it as fast as we could. There was nobody at the cabin since it was occupied only in the summertime, but fortunately there was a settler just below whose light burned invitingly in the darkness which surrounded us. We stopped at this ranchhouse and found that it was occupied by Mr. C.R. Likens, a Missourian who had migrated to Montana. He was a hospitable soul and invited us in and we most gladly accepted his invitation. He proceeded to prepare for us one of the most welcome feasts which I have ever enjoyed. He had a warm house and after dinner he brought out a whole rack full of pipes and plenty of tobacco. He apologized that he didn't have cigars to offer us, but I assured him that that was not at all necessary. At this point, I turned to Bob and said, "Bob, you either take one of these pipes and start smoking or this is the end of our journey; we are starting back to town in the morning." I am sure it was not my admonition so much as it was Bob's desire to smoke which won the day, but he did light up and I can assure you that the trip thence forward was altogether successful where it otherwise would have been a dismal failure. Such are some of the hazards of travel in the mountains without smoking tobacco.

There must be an end to this recitation. My assignment to the Blackfeet ended on July 1 and therefore I could not have made very much impression either for good or ill on its administration. My notes indicate that at a meeting in Kalispell on May 11, 1911, the Northern Montana Forestry Association was founded. Bob McLaughlin and R.H. Rutledge were present at the meeting and Bob was the real motive force. Greeley had gone to Washington to take charge of timber management and Gus Silcox was installed as District Forester. Bert Cooper had left in the meantime and Dave Mason was running timber management. A vacancy existed in the position of assistant District Forester in charge of operations which was the job of fire protection, improvements and control of finances on the National Forests. I took up these new duties on July 15 and moved my family, consisting now of a wife and a young baby, to Missoula.

Of the events at Missoula during the balance of 1911, only one is perhaps worth recording as out of the ordinary. That was the organization of a section of the Society of American Foresters at Missoula on December 11. It was organized as the Missoula Section and now is known as the Northern Rocky Mountain Section. It was always been a source of pride to me that I can class myself as one of the charter members of one of the first of the organized sections of the Society.

1912

During the week of January 22, a Supervisors' meeting was held at Missoula which was probably the most important to that section of the Forest Service of any meeting before or since, since the whole fire protective and allotment system was worked over and important policies decided which had a far-reaching effect upon the administration of the National Forests. I shall not dwell upon the more or less prosaic matters of administration, although their effect was greater than was the incident which I am going to tell.

Among other things discussed was the problem of controlling insect infestations in the timber - bugs, mostly Dendroctinus Monticola. Infestations had appeared in Idaho in the white pine on the Kootenai and in various places in Lodgepole, and considerable sums (that is for that day) had been spent following the technical directions of representatives of the Bureau of Entomology. Local concentrations had been assaulted by cutting and peeling infested trees There were many other spots of infestation which it seemed impossible to reach. The question was whether or not expenditure of money on these relatively few concentration points could have any lasting effect upon the progress of the infestations. There were laymen's arguments for and against, and highly technical dissertations from the trained entomologists supporting the idea of continuing expenditures. It was late in the day of a strenuous session. Everybody was tired but intensely interested in the decision about to be made. Dorr Skeels, the Supervisor of the Kootenai National Forest, arose and was recognized by the chairman. He said, "Gentlemen, I - I - I want to as - ask you this question: if - if a town, a whole town, was in - infested by rats, you - you wouldn't try to s - stop the - rats by - by - pu - pu - putting a gold plug in one rat hole, would you?" That ended the discussion and relieved the tension; the meeting was adjourned.

1914

From 1911 to 1914, fire seasons in Montana and Idaho were not particularly severe. The 1910 lesson was, however, a very severe one and very remarkable progress was made in developing lookouts, trails, telephone lines, emergency rations, purchase of pack animals and in developing fire equipment ready for shipment at a moments'notice. Very great progress too had been made under Mr. Silcox's leadership in developing the morals and a degree of efficiency of which the organization was very properly proud. Later developments showed that there were very many holes in the organization and very many deficiencies, some of which were realized at the time, but still the statement can be made that, compared with the pioneer days of 1910, the 1914 fire season opened with a greatly improved organization and facilities for handling the fire situation.

I had one memorable trip during the month of July 1914, which is worth recording. I was Chief of Operations, which included supervision of the fire protective organization. F.A. Silcox was the District Forester. We decided to go out and build fires to see whether or not the lookouts could pick them up, in an effort to put the organization on its toes. We did this without warning, going out alone, carrying our food and blankets on our backs, going through country largely without trails. I remember we camped two nights on the Missoula Forest and four nights on the Lolo. Those were so strenuous that we then decided to make a picnic out of it and went to an accessible spot on the Cabinet in Silcox's automobile, taking our families along. In all, we started four or five test fires which were, in effect, large-sized camp fires built close enough to streams where we knew we could keep them from spreading. After getting a good fire started, we created what we thought were enormous volumes of smoke by adding green coniferous brush, keeping each fire going for three or four hours. Out of four or five such test fires started, only one was picked up by a lookout. Various explanations were offered for the failure to pick up the smokes. In some cases the lookouts were not on the job, because the fire danger did not seem to be imminent, but in most cases, we concluded that our best efforts to make a large volume of smoke failed in carrying the smoke to a sufficient altitude to be seen by the lookouts over the intervening ridges. It is probable that such test fires are ineffective except where the line of vision is direct from the lookout to the point of origin of the fire.

The following is quoted from my diary of July 15, 1914, Lolo Forest: "We continued south up mountain towards divide between Nine Mile Creek and the Missoula River. Reached top about 10:30 a.m., about three hours climb through brush and windfall, no trail. Found trail on top after an hour's struggle through brush. Followed trail in wrong direction about two miles before we got straightened out. Backtracked and traveled along trail for 5 or 6 miles. Camped at L.L. Maurers' trapper cabin and slept with the pack rats."

At the end of July 1914, the fires were on us in earnest, and all the rest of the season our energies were devoted to the job of firefighting. My first big fire that season was on Big River on the Flathead National Forest. The fight lasted about three weks from the latter part of July to about the middle of August. I remember the World War broke out during the time that I was fighting that fire. I was on an inspection trip, riding down the ridge above Big River towards the Great Northern Railroad, traveling with one of the Rangers from the Flathead. About 4:00 o'clock we saw a tremendous smoke rising from Big River, at a point which seemed to be 10 or 12 miles distant, near the route which we had covered early that morning. We had not camped and had had no camp fire, so there was no possible doubt of our entire innocence in the starting of the fire. Realizing that the fire was too large for two men to handle, we continued to the railroad and by means of the Great Northern telephone, which the company permitted us to use, the firefighting machine was geared up and started to work. We had lots of talent on that fire - Dick Rutledge was in Kalispell and he came up on a night train with 50 men, beds, equipment, and food. We camped out in the brush along the middle fork of the Flathead River at the mouth of Big River. Dave Mason arrived from some point before morning, and set up headquarters in a boxcar on the Great Northern siding. At daybreak, Rutledge and I with 50 men and a pack outfit, started up Big River to the fire. We arrived at the scene shortly before noon, set up a camp about three-quarters of a mile below the fire, had lunch, and then began the attack. Rugledge was an old hand at firefighting. I had had no experience at that time, except the little gained on the Beartooth in the 1910 fires, and a few slight contacts with fires during the intervening years. My job was scouting the fire, but the first day I stayed on the line. Gene Jacroux, an experienced 1910 firefighter, who was a Ranger on the Flathead at that time, was Rutledge's right-hand man. I remember the crew of 50 men was divided into two gangs; Rutledge took one and Jacroux took the other. They spread out along the line of fire which was the flat spruce woods immediately along the creek where we first encountered the blaze. Rutledge took his men, assigned them the tools and went through the ritual which was afterwards all too familiar, "Axes in the lead, cross cut saws follow up, grub hoes next, follow up with the shovels." All went well until about four in the afternoon after the crew had been working about three hours. A considerable line had been built. The wind came up and the fire crowned in the spruce trees and blew fire in a dozen places across the line. There is probably no forest type in which fire is more difficult to control than in a dense stand of spruce. The crew scattered and worked on the spot fires with a sufficient number to guard each spot. The rest of the crew continued to build line. Again the wind blew the fire across the trail. Rutledge said, "Come on boys, we will go to camp." I was astonished. It seemed to me almost like treason, but, of course, I said nothing. Rutledge went to camp with his 25 men. He sent a messenger to Jacroux advising him to do likewise, but Gene had a different philosophy. He continued to fight, with the result that he came into camp at dark with his crew exhausted and with the fire line in no better shape than when Rugledge left it about 4:30. Meanwhile, Rutledge's crew had been fed and allowed to rest. A night crew was organized for patrol of the line which had been built. By the next morning, all of the line was in very good shape and ready for a back fire. Meanwhile, Mason was rustling pack animals from Glacier Park and from other places, and a steady stream of supplies and men came to our camp, until at the end of a week's time, we probably had 150 or 200 men on the fire.

As a scout I followed the course of the fire up the mountain. I remember I reported to Rutledge that there was only one place on the divide where the fire might possibly get across, and that was covered with bear grass, so that I thought there was little chance that the fire could cross, but it did a few days later, go over that divide through the saddle, through that green bear grass, as though it were tinder, and spotted fires in the next drainage. So camp had to be put over there, and a trail cut to the camp site to get men and supplies in.

I remember one amusing incident. I forgot to mention Jack Clack, deputy supervisor on the Flathead, who was in our camp part of the time. He was looking after the cooks. The camp equipment included camp stoves of light sheet tin, but the grub handed out to the crew was not the best. The cook explained his deficiencies by saying that he was a Dutch oven cook. He didn't know how to cook with these stoves, so Jack went to the telephone (temporary emergency telephone line had been built from the railroad to our camp) and called Mason at the railroad and ordered Dutch ovens. The next afternoon I was standing at the camp when the pack train arrived. The Dutch ovens were unloaded and lined up on the ground. The cook watched the unloading.

He said to Clack, "What are those damn pots for?" "Those pots," said Clack, "are your Dutch ovens." Without a word, the cook reported to the timekeeper, got his time and went down the trail.

By the end of the three weeks, the Big River fire was under control. An immense body of spruce timber had been saved. The cost, as I remember it, was large, probably $50,000, but none of us had any doubt but that the expenditure was worthwhile. A patrol crew was left until the fall rains ended the fire season, and thus the Big River fire became a matter of history.

There were other fires that season in which I had a part, particularly the Elk Summit fire on the Selaway. I wound up the season in charge of 85 men in the back country of the Selway. On the morning of the 8th of September, we found about four inches of snow all over our fire. Our job for the next two days, until we could get the crew out, was to keep the men warm, as the ordinary blankets were insufficient for the cold temperatures which were encountered with the advent of the snow. We had some big tents, but an inadequate supply of stoves for heating purposes. We did have some metal washtubs, however, so we turned the washtubs upside-down, cut holes in the bottoms, connected them with stovepipes and the combination made a very adequate, if awkward type of Sibley stove, but we kept the men warm until we could get them out to the railroad which was about 25 miles distant down Blodget Canyon to Hamilton, Montana.

1915 - 1916

My notes show that June 17, 1915, was the day of my transfer from Operations to Silviculture. In other words, I was no longer directly concerned with allotments, fire protection, improvements, and personnel, but more concerned with timber sales, scaling, contracts, and similar matters concerning the timber business. Dave Mason had undertaken the job of making a study of the lumber industry in the Inland Empire, which was one of the big undertakings of the Forest Service of that period. Activity in Silviculture of those days seems to have been divided between marking rules, research, timber appraisals, and firefighting. The preparation of white pine marking rules was the big problem during these two years. Prominent in my notes of those more or less directly connected with the problem were Girard, Swartz, Billings, Carl Stevens, Dahlgren, "Skip" Knouf, Don Bruce, Fritz. Fulloway, Harry Baker, Kittredge, McHarg, Koch, Wolff, Fitzwater, Forsythe, Silcox, who took an active part, and from Washington, Greeley, R.Y. Stuart, and E.E. Carter.

There were many visits to the woods and many an argument in the woods. Upon some occasions, they assumed the proportions of "visitations" rather than visits. Upon the occasion of one such "visitation" to the Coeur d'Alene, Meyer Wolff, in order to help settle some argument, was busy using an increment borer on a white pine tree on a sale area then active. A number of lumberjacks stopped their work and watched him. They had never before seen such a curious tool. One of them finally motioned to Dahlagren, who stepped over to be interviewed, and the following conversation took place:

Lumberjack: "What is Mr. Wolff doing to that tree?"

Dahlgren: "Do you know about these bugs which kill the pine trees, these bark beetles ?"

Lumberjack: "Yes." (Rather doubtfully.)

Dahlgren: "He is boring for one of those bark beetles."

Lumberjack, after thinking over the matter for some time: "What does he do with the bugs after he gets them?"

Dahlgren: "He wraps them up, puts them in a box, and mails them to Washington."

Lumberjack: "And what does Washington do with them?"

Dahlgren: "It kills them."

This story is apropos of many another thing which gets sent to Washington and is there killed.

The final chapter (at least for that stage) of the marking rules seems to have been reached on October 2 and 3, 1916, since my diary contains the following note: "Final draft marking rules with Silcox, Carter, Wolff, and McHarg."

1917 - 1920

This was the war period which was an anxious and difficult time. In the Montana-Idaho country, activities largely consisted of firefighting, which seemed to be more and more becoming a regular summer activity which consumed nearly all of everybody's time, various details connected with the war and with growing I.W.W. troubles. I remember that Silcox was particularly interested in the struggle between the I.W.W.'s and the loggers, and devoted a great deal of study and thought to the problem. In 1917 he left the Montana-Idaho country, intending to go to France, but after he got to Washington, he was sidetracked, because of his interest in the labor problems, to handle labor for the government in the shipyards in Seattle.

R.H. Rutledge took hold of the Forest Service in the Montana-Idaho country, as acting District Forester. The problem of firefighting seems to be more prominent in my memory during this period than other activities. Every summer a great many men came to District One from other assignments in the Forest Service, to help fight the fires - that is, to actually take charge of fire crews and to help in a supervisory capacity. John MacLaren was one of the visitors who came so often that we came to know him well and considered him a part of the regular establishment. I remember one summer, he was at "The Bungalow" on the Clearwater trying to get crews sent to the various fires. I was on the same Forest, but out nearer headquarters. One night, a particularly bad "dry" lightning storm hit. Next morning reports came to us of more and more fires sighted from the lookouts. Most of the country apparently could be reached only from "The Bungalow," and then only by first cutting trails if any fire crew was to be sent in. I called up MacLaren and gave him the report of the fires within his territorial jurisdiction. "I will put pins in my map," he said, "but you have given me too many already. I am afraid we can never reach them." As a matter of fact, however, he did get men to nearly all of those fires and put them out, but there was always one which seemed to get away in spite of best efforts. That one did tremendous damage.

In June 1920, I left the Montana-Idaho country in a transfer to Silviculture in Washington, and this is a good place to bring these recollections to a close, because Washington is an entirely different place and the Washington job is entirely different from the field. It doesn't have the glamor and doesn't seem to create the enthusiasm so prominent in the field - at least in those days.

I have failed to mention many famous characters who are prominent in my memory and are often mentioned in my notes - such men as Major Frank Fenn who was one of Idaho's pioneers - an Indian fighter, a forester and a gentleman of renown. I hope somebody will provide a fitting tribute and picture of Major Fenn. Then there was Roscoe Haines, supervisor, logger, and generalissimo; R. B. Adams who fixed the telephones; Frank Bonner and George Lautz, famous engineers; G.I. Porter, C.N. Whitney, Rutledge Parker, Glen Smith and many others whom I could mention, and about whom I could recite experiences and tell stories, but this essay must close and so I will forego the pleasure.

(click on image for a PDF version)