going to one of my
forests. Mr. Masseth was telling me that you're his nephew. I guess
we'll start right in by having our first feed together. This is hardly
camping out," he added, looking around the well-appointed and handsome
room, "but the grub shows that it's the Service all right."

The District Forester motioned to the table which was heaped with dozens
upon dozens of baked apples, flanked by several tall pitchers of milk.

"There you have it," he continued, "back to nature and the simple life.
It's all right to go through a Ranger School and to satisfy the powers
that be about your fitness, but that isn't really getting to the inside
of the matter. It's when you feel that you've had the chance to come
right in and take the regular prescribed ritual of a baked apple and a
glass of milk in the house of the Chief Forester that you can feel
you're the real thing in the Service."

[Illustration: THE TIE-CUTTERS' BOYS.

Two young members of the outlaw gang which defied the cattle man and
threatened the Forest Service.

_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]

[Illustration: DEFORESTED AND WASHED AWAY.

Example of laborious artificial terracing in China to save the little
soil remaining.

_Courtesy of U. S. Forest Service._]

[Illustration: AS BAD AS ANYTHING IN CHINA.

Final results of deforestation in Tennessee, due to cutting and to fumes
from a copper smelter.

_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]

CHAPTER III

THE FIGHT IN THE COULEE

When, a few days later, Wilbur found himself standing on the platform of
the little station at Sumber, with the cactus-clad Mohave desert about
him and the slopes of the Sierra Nevada beyond, he first truly realized
that his new life was beginning. His journey out from Washington had
been full of interest because the District Forester had accompanied him
the greater part of the way, and had taken the opportunity to explain
how varied were the conditions that he would find in the Sequoia forest
to which he had been assigned. In large measure the District Forester's
especial interest, Wilbur realized, was due to the fact that Masseth had
told him of the boy's intention to go to college and thence through the
Yale Forestry School, having had beforehand training as Guard, and
possibly later as Ranger.

But, as the train pulled out of the station, and Wilbur looked over the
sage-brush and sparse grass, seeming to dance under the shimmering
heat-waves of