ver so much more money than we do out of
forests, because they have studied them, and know just how everything
ought to be done."

"Don't we do anything like that at all?"

"Yes, we're beginning to now. The United States government, and a good
many of the states, have seemed to wake up in the last few years to the
need of looking after the woods better, and so I really believe that in
the future things will be managed much better. But there has been a
terrible lot of waste, here and in Canada, that it will take years to
repair."

"They don't spoil the woods about here that way, do they?"

"No; but then, you see, this is a private preserve, and one of the
reasons it is so well looked after is that some of the men who own it
like to come here for the shooting."

"I know," said Margery. "I thought that was why the guides were kept
here."

"It is, but it's only one reason. A few miles away, if we go that way,
I can show you acres and acres of woods that were burned two years ago,
and you never saw such a desolate spot in all your life. It's
beginning to look a little better now, because, if you give nature a
chance, she will always repair the damage that men do from
carelessness, and from not knowing any better."

"Oh, I think it would be dreadful for all these lovely woods to be
burned up! And that wouldn't do anyone any good, would it?"

"Of course not! That's the pitiful part of it. But a terrible lot of
fires do start in the woods almost every year. You see, after a hot,
dry summer, when there hasn't been much rain, the woods catch fire
easily, and a small fire, if it isn't stamped out at once, grows and
spreads very fast, so that it soon gets to be almost impossible to put
out at all."

"I saw a forest fire once, in the distance," said Dolly. "It was when
I was out west, and it looked as if the whole world was burning up."

"I expect it did, Dolly. And if you'd been closer, you'd have seen how
hard the rangers and everyone in the neighboring towns had to fight to
get control of that fire. It doesn't seem as if they could burn as
fast as they do, but they're terrible. It's the hardest fire of all to
put out, if it once gets away. That's why we have such strict rules
about never leaving a camping place without putting out a fire."

"Would one of the little fires we make when we stop on the trail for
lunch start a great big blaze?"

"It certainly would. It's happened just that way lots and lo