Page:Edison Marshall--The voice of the pack.djvu/72

54 until the rains come in the fall, they have to guard every minute, and even then sometimes the fires get away from them. And one of the first things a forester learns, Dan, is to be careful with fire."

"Is that the way they are started—from the carelessness of campers?"

"Partly. There's an old rule in the hills: put out every fire before you leave it. Be careful with the cigar butts, too—even the coals of a pipe. But of course the lightning starts many fires, and, I regret to say, hundreds of them are started with matches."

"But why on earth—"

"It does n't make very good sense, does it? Well, one reason is that certain stockmen think that a burned forest makes good range—that the undervegetation that springs up when the trees are burned makes good feed for stock. And you must know, too, that there are two kinds of men in the mountains. One kind—the real mountain man, such as your grandfather was—lives just as well, just as clean as the ranchers in the valley. Some of this kind are trappers or herders. But there's another class too—the most unbelievably shiftless, ignorant people in America. They have a few acres to raise crops, and they kill deer for their hides, and most of all they make