esignation blank almost before he knew it, and went
back to Peanutville.

"It so happened that one of the Rangers had friends in Peanutville, and
the boys at the camp followed the youth's career with much interest. He
clerked, he took money at a circus window, he tried cub newspaper work,
he stood behind a dry-goods counter, he was everything by turns but
nothing long."

"What finally happened to him?" asked Wilbur.

"Last I heard he was a salesman in a woman's shoe store. But he's still
with us in spirit," said the doctor, "as a horrible example. Right now,
down in the heart of a forest fire, when the Rangers are working like
men possessed down some hot gulch, one will say to the other:

"'Gee, Jack, if I was only back where I used to be, I could be having a
plate of ice cream this minute.' And the other will reply: 'I wish I
might be back in Peanutville and hear the band play in the park.' And
both men will laugh and go at the work all the harder for realizing what
a miserable failure the weak greenhorn had been."

"I'm thinking," said Wilbur, "that I'll never give them the chance to
talk like that about me!"

"From what I heard," said the doctor, "I don't believe you will."

"And from what I see," said the doctor's wife gently, as the two rose
and bade the "patient" good-night, "I know we shall all be glad that you
have come to us here in the forest."

[Illustration: WHAT TREE-PLANTING WILL DO.

Pine plantation fifty years old showing growth of timber. Trunks,
however, should not show so many superfluous low branches.

_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]

[Illustration: THE FIRST CONSERVATION EXPERT

Work of a beaver in felling a tree with which to build a dam for his
home.

_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]

CHAPTER XIII

HOW THE FOREST WON A GREAT DOCTOR

In the middle of the night the telephone bell rang. Instantly Wilbur
heard the doctor's voice responding.

"Yes, where is it?" he queried. "Where? Oh, just beyond Basco Aleck's
place. All right, I'll start right away."

There was some rummaging in the other rooms, and in less than five
minutes' time the clatter of hoofs outside told the boy that the doctor
was off, probably on the huge gray horse Wilbur had seen in the corral
as he rode in that day. It was broad daylight when he wakened again, and
Mrs. Davis was standing beside him with his breakfast tray. It was so
long since Wilbur had not had to prepare breakfast for h