XVII
The autumn passed, and winter closed down. Plant continued hisadministration. For a month the countryside was on a tip-toe ofexpectation. It counted on no immediate results, but the "suspensionpending investigation" was to take place within a few weeks. As far assurface indications were concerned nothing happened. Expectation wasturned back on itself. Absolute confidence in Plant's removal andcriminal conviction gave place to scepticism and doubt, finally to utterdisbelief. And since Thorne had succeeded in arousing a real faith andenthusiasm, the reaction was by so much the stronger. Tolerance gave wayto antagonism; distrust to bitterness; grievance to open hostility. TheForest Reserves were cursed as a vicious institution created for thebenefit of the rich man, depriving the poor man of his rights andprivileges, imposing on him regulations that were at once galling andsenseless.
The Forest Rangers suddenly found themselves openly unpopular.Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by the mountaineers as either agood-for-nothing saloon loafer enjoying the fats of politicalperquisite; or as a species of inunderstandable fanatic to be lookeddown upon with good-humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan ofthe opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased speaking to him,or greeted him with the curtest of nods. Plant's men were ostracized inevery way, once they showed themselves obstinate in holding to theirpositions. Every man was urged to resign. Many did so. Others hung onbecause the job was too soft to lose. Some, like Ross Fletcher,California John, Tom Carroll, Charley Morton and a few others, moved ontheir accustomed way.
One of the inspiring things in the later history of the great West isthe faith and insight, the devotion and self-sacrifice of some of therough mountain men in some few of the badly managed reserves to truthsthat were but slowly being recognized by even the better educated of theEast. These men, year after year, without leadership, withoutencouragement, without the support and generally against the covered oropen hostility of their neighbours, under most disheartening officialconditions kept the torch alight. They had no wide theory of forestry tosustain their interest; they could certainly have little hope ofpromotion and advancement to a real career; their experience with abureaucratic government could not arouse in their breasts anyexpectation of a broad, a liberal, or even an enlightened policy ofconservation or use. They were set in opposition to their neighbourswithout receiving the support of the power that so placed them.Nevertheless, according to their knowledge they worked faithfully. Fivetimes out of ten they had little either of supervision or instruction.Turned out in the mountains, like a bunch of stock, each was free to doas much or as little of whatever he pleased. Each improved his districtaccording to his ideas or his interests. One cared most for buildingtrails; another for chasing sheep trespassers; a third for constructionof bridges, cabins and fences. All had occasionally to fight fires. Eachwas given the inestimable privilege of doing what he could. Everythinghe did had to be reported on enormous and complicated forms. If he madea mistake in any of these, he heard from it, and perhaps his pay washeld up. This pay ran somewhere about sixty or seventy-five dollars amonth, and he was required to supply his own horses and to feed them.Most rangers who were really interested in their profession spent someof this in buying tools with which to work.[A] The Government suppliednext to nothing. In 1902 between the King's River and the Kaweah, anarea of somewhere near a million acres, the complete inventory offire-fighting tools consisted of two rakes made from fifty cents' worthof twenty-penny nails.
But these negative discouragements were as nothing compared to the pettyrebuffs and rulings that emanated from the Land Office itself.
One spring Ross Fletcher, following specific orders, was sent out aftertwenty thousand trespassing sheep. It was early in the season. Hisinstructions took him up into the frozen meadows, so he had to carrybarley for his horses. He used three sacks and sent in a bill for one.Item refused. Feed was twenty dollars a thousand. Salary seventy-fivedollars.
One of Simeon Wright's foremen broke down government fences and fed outall the ranger horse feed. Tom Carroll wrote to Superintendent Smith;later to Washington. The authorities, however, refused to revoke thecattleman's licence. At Christmas time, when Carroll was in White Oaksthe foreman and his two sons jeered at and insulted the ranger in regardto this matter until the latter lost his temper and thrashed all three,one after the other. For this he was severely reprimanded by Washington.
Charley Morton was ordered to Yosemite to consult with the militaryofficers there. He was instructed to do so in a certain number of days.To keep inside his time limit he had to hire a team. Item refused.
California John fought fire alone for two days and a night, then had togo outside for help. Docked a day for going off the reserve.
Why did these men prefer to endure neglect and open hostility to thefavour of their neighbours and easier work? Bob, with a growing wonderand respect, tried to find out.
He did not succeed. There certainly was no overwhelming love for theadministration of Henry Plant; nor loyalty to the Land Office. Indeedfor the latter, one and all entertained the deep contempt of theout-of-door man for the red-tape clerk.
"What do you think is the latest," asked California John one day, "fromthem little squirts? I just got instructions that during of the fireseason I must patrol the whole of my district every day!" The old mangrinned. "I only got from here to Pumice Mountain! I wonder if thosefellows ever saw a mountain? I suppose they laid off an inch on the mapand let it go at that. Patrol every day!"
"How long would it take you?" asked Bob.
"By riding hard, about a week."
Rather the loyalty seemed to be gropingly to the idea back of it all, tosomething broad and dim and beautiful which these rough, untutored menhad drawn from their native mountains and which thus they rendered back.
As Bob gradually came to understand more of the situation his curiositygrew. The lumberman's instinctive hostility to government control andinterference had not in the slightest degree modified; but he had begunto differentiate this small, devoted band from the machinery of theForest Reserves as they were then conducted. He was a little inclined tothe fanatic theory; he knew by now that the laziness hypothesis wouldnot apply to these.
"What is there in it?" he asked. "You surely can't hope for a boost insalary; and certainly your bosses treat you badly."
At first he received vague and evasive answers. They liked the work;they got along all right; it was a lot better than the cattle businessjust now, and so on. Then as it became evident that the young man wasgenuinely interested, California John gradually opened up. One strangeand beautiful feature of American partisanship for an ideal is itsshyness. It will work and endure, will wait and suffer, but it will notgo forth to proselyte.
"The way I kind of look at it is this," said the old man one evening."I always did like these here mountains--and the big trees--and therocks and water and the snow. Everywhere else the country belongs tosome one: it's staked out. Up here it belongs to me, because I'm anAmerican. This country belongs to all of us--the people--all of us. Wemost of us don't know we've got it, that's all. I kind of look at itthis way: suppose I had a big pile of twenty-dollar gold pieces lyingup, say in Siskiyou, that I didn't know nothing whatever about; and somefellow come along and took care of it for me and hung onto it even whenI sent out word that anybody was welcome to anything I owned inSiskiyou--I not thinking I really owned anything there, youunderstand--why--well, you see, I sort of like to feel I'm one of thosefellows!"
"What good is there in hanging onto a lot of land that would be betterdeveloped?" asked Bob.
But California John refused to be drawn into a discussion. He had hisfaith, but he would not argue about it. Sometime or other the peoplewould come to that same faith. In the meantime there was no sense intangling up with discussions.
"They send us out some reading that tells about it," said CaliforniaJohn. "I'll give you some."
He was as good as his word. Bob carried away with him a dozen governmentpublications of the
sort that, he had always concluded, everybodyreceived and nobody read. Interested, not in the subject matter of thepamphlets, but in their influence on these mountain men, he did readthem. In this manner he became for the first time acquainted with theelementary principles of watersheds and water conservation. This wasactually so. Nor did he differ in this respect from any other of themillions of well-educated youth of the country. In a vague way he knewthat trees influence climate. He had always been too busy with trees tobother about climate.
The general facts interested him, and appealed to his logical commonsense. He saw for the first time, because for the first time it had beenpresented to his attention, the real use and reason for the forestreserves. Hitherto he had considered the whole institution assemi-hostile, at least as something in potential antagonism. Now he waswilling fairly to recognize the wisdom of preserving some portion of themountain cover. He had not really denied it; simply he hadn't consideredit.
Early in this conviction he made up to Ross Fletcher for his brusquenessin ordering the ranger off the mill property.
"I just classed you with your gang, which was natural," said Bob.
"I am one of my gang, of course," said Fletcher.
"Do you consider yourself one of the same sort of dicky bird as Plantand that crew?" demanded Bob.
"There ain't no humans all alike," replied the mountaineer.
Although Bob was thus rebuffed in immediately getting inside of theman's loyalty to his service and his superiors, he was from that momentmade to feel at his ease. Later, in a fuller intimacy, he was treatedmore frankly.
Welton laughed openly at Bob's growing interest in these matters.
"You're the first man I ever saw read any of those things," said he inregard to the government reports. "I once read one," he went on indelightful contradiction to his first statement. "It told how to cuttimber. When you cut down a tree, you pile up the remains in a neat pileand put a little white picket fence around them. It would take athousand men and cost enough to buy a whole new tract to do all themonkey business they want you to do. I've only been in the lumberbusiness forty years! When a college boy can teach me, I'm willing tolisten; but he can't teach me the A B C of the business."
Bob laughed. "Well, I can't just see us taking time in a short seasonto back-track and pile up ornamental brush piles," he admitted.
"Experimental farms, and experimental chickens, and experimentallumbering are all right for the gentleman farmer and the gentlemanpoultry fancier and the gentleman lumberman--if there are any. But whenit comes to business----"
Bob laughed. "Just the same," said he, "I'm beginning to see that it's agood thing to keep some of this timber standing; and the only way it canbe done is through the Forest Reserves."
"That's all right," agreed Welton. "Let'em reserve. I don't care. Butthey are a nuisance. They keep stepping on my toes. It's too good achance to annoy and graft. It gives a hard lot of loafers too good achance to make trouble."
"They are a hard lot in general," agreed Bob, "but there's some good menamong them, men I can't help but admire."
Welton rolled his eyes drolly at the younger man.
"Who?" he inquired.
"Well, there's old California John."
"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are honest," cut inWelton, "but it's because they're too damn thick-headed to be anythingelse. Don't get kiddish enough to do the picturesque mountaineer act,Bobby. I can dig you up four hundred of that stripe anywhere--andholding down just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick with thatkind. In the city you'll find them holding open-air meetings. I supposeour friend Plant has been pinched?"
"Not yet," grinned Bob, a trifle shamefacedly.
"Don't get the reform bug, Bob," said Welton kindly, "That's all verywell for those that like to amuse themselves, but we're busy."
[Footnote A: The accounts of one man showed that for a long period hehad so disbursed from his own pocket an average of thirty dollars amonth. His salary was sixty dollars.]
The Rules of the Game Page 42
