been
together many years in Yellowstone; and Ranger West, and Ranger Peck.
These and several more were at the table.

"Eat your dinner," the Chief advised, and I ate, from steak to pie. The
three meals there were breakfast, dinner, and supper. No lettuce-leaf
lunch for them.

Dinner disposed of, I turned my attention to making my cabin fit to
live in. The cook had his flunky sweep and scrub the floor, and then,
with the aid of blankets, pictures, and draperies from my trunks, the
little place began to lose its forlorn look. White Mountain contributed
a fine pair of Pendleton blankets, gay and fleecy. He spread a Navajo
rug on the floor and placed an armful of books on the table. Ranger Fisk
threw the broken chair outside and brought me a chair he had made for
himself. Ranger Winess had been riding the drift fence while we worked,
but he appeared on the scene with a big cluster of red Indian paintbrush
blossoms he had found in a coulee. None of us asked if they were picked
inside the Park.

No bed was available, and again Ranger Fisk came to the rescue. He lent
me his cot and another ranger contributed his mattress.

White Mountain was called away, and when he returned he said that he had
hired a girl for the fire look-out tower, and suggested that I might
like to have her live there with me. "She's part Indian," he added.

"Fine. I like Indians, and anyway these doors won't lock. I'm glad to
have her." So they found another cot and put it up in the kitchen for
her.

She was a jolly, warm-hearted girl, used to life in such places. Her
husband was a forest ranger several miles away, and she spent most of
her time in the open. All day she stayed high in the fire tower, with
her glasses scanning the surrounding country. At the first sign of
smoke, she determined its exact location by means of a map and then
telephoned to Ranger Headquarters. Men were on their way immediately,
and many serious forest fires were thus nipped in the bud.

She and I surveyed each other curiously. I waited for her to do the
talking.

"You won't stay here long!" she said, and laughed when I asked her why.

"This is a funny place to put you," she remarked next, after a glance
around our new domain. "I'd rather be out under a tree, wouldn't you?"

"God forbid!" I answered earnestly. "I'm no back-to-nature fan, and this
is primitive a-plenty for me. There's no bathroom, and I can't even find
a place to wash my face. What shall we do?"