she was
rugged, she was kind. They became rugged an' kind, too. An' that's what
the right sort of American is to this day."

"A lot of our best statesmen in early days were from the newly cleared
settlements; that's a fact," said Wilbur thoughtfully, "right up to the
Civil War."

"An' through it!" added the Ranger. "How about Abe Lincoln?"

Wilbur thought to himself that perhaps "backwoodsman" was not quite a
fair idea of the great President's Illinois upbringing, but he thought
it wiser not to argue the point to no profit.

"But it's all different now," continued Rifle-Eye a trifle sadly,
"things have changed an' the city's beginnin' to have a bigger hold than
the forest. An' the forest still needs, an' I reckon it allers will
need, the old kind o' men. Once we had to fight tooth an' nail agin the
forest jest to get enough land to live on, an' now we've got to fight
jest as hard for the forest so as there'll be enough of it for what we
need. In this here country you can't ever get away from the
woods-dweller, whether he's backwoodsman or Forester, or whatever you
call him--the man who can depend on himself an' live his life wherever
there's sky overhead an' ground underfoot an' trees between.

"They're the discoverers of America, too. Oh, yes, they are," he
continued, noting Wilbur's look of contradiction. "It wasn't Columbus or
Amerigo or any o' the floatin' adventurers who first saw a blue splotch
o' land on the horizon that discovered America. It was the men who
conquered the forest, who found all, did all, an' became all that the
life demanded, that really brought into bein' America an' the
Americans."

The Ranger stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and, touching his horse
lightly with the spur, went on ahead up the trail. Evidently he was
thinking of the old times and the boy had wisdom enough not to disturb
him. As the afternoon drew on the foothills were left behind and the
open road became more and more enclosed, until at last it was simply a
trail through the forest. The shadows were lengthening and it was
drawing on toward evening, when the Ranger halted beside a little
ravine, densely wooded with yellow pine, incense cedar, and white fir.
Wilbur was tired and his horses, fresh to the trail, were showing signs
of fatigue, so he was glad to stop.

"I don't know how you feel about it," said the Ranger, "but I reckon
I'll camp here. There's a good spring a couple of hundred feet down
stream. But you ai