he hastened to add.
A steel triangle hung on a tree near the cookhouse door, and when dinner was ready Jack's helper struck it sharply with an iron bar. This made a clatter that could be heard a mile and brought the men tumbling from their tents to eat. As I was washing my hands and face in the kitchen I heard Jack making a few remarks to his boarders: "Now don't any you roughnecks forget there's a lady eatin' here from now on, and I'll be damned if there's goin' to be any cussin', either." I don't believe they needed any warning, for during the months I lived near their tents and ate with them they never "forgot."
Many of them no doubt had come from homes as good as mine, and more than
one had college degrees. As they became accustomed to having me around they
shed their reserve along with their coats and became just what they really were, a bunch of grown-up boys in search of adventure.
A week later it seemed perfectly natural to sit down to luncheon with platters of steak, bowls of vegetables, mounds of potatoes, and pots of steaming black coffee; but just then it was a radical change from my usual glass of milk and thin sandwich lunch. The food was served on long pine tables, flanked by backless benches. Blue and white enamel dishes, steel knives and forks, and of course no
napkins, made up the service. We drank coffee from tin cups, cooling and diluting it with condensed milk poured from the original can. I soon learned that
"Shoot the cow!" meant nothing more deadly than "Pass the milk, please!"
The rangers ate at a table apart from the other men. The Chief sat at the head of the table, and my plate was at his right. Several rangers rose to greet me when I came in.
"I'm glad you came," said one of them. "We are apt to grow careless without someone to keep the rough edges polished for us." That was Ranger Charley Fisk, the most loyal, faithful friend one could wish for. He was never too tired nor too busy to add a shelf here or build a cabinet there in my tiny cabin for me.
But all that I had to learn later. There was Frank, Ranger Winess; he and the Chief had 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?"
We reconnoitered, and found the water supply. We coaxed a tin basin away from
the cook and were fully equipped as far as a bathroom was concerned.
Thea—for that was her Indian name—agreed that it might be well to fasten our
doors; so we dragged the decrepit dresser against the front portal and moved a trunk across the back entrance. As there were no shades at the windows, we undressed in the dark and retired.
The wind moaned in the pines. A querulous coyote complained. Strange noises
were everywhere around us. Scampering sounds echoed back and forth in the cabin. My cot was hard and springless as a rock, and when I stretched into a more comfortable position the end bar fell off and the whole structure collapsed, I with it. Modesty vetoed a light, since the men were still passing our cabin on their way to the tents; so in utter darkness I pulled the mattress under the table and there made myself as comfortable as possible. Just as I was dozing, Thea came in from the kitchen bringing her cot bumping and banging at her heels. She
was utterly unnerved by rats and mice racing over her. We draped petticoats and
other articles of feminine apparel over the windows and sat up the rest of the night over the smoky lamp. Wrapped in our bright blankets it would have been
difficult to tell which of us was the Indian.
"I'll get a cat tomorrow," I vowed.
"You can't. Cats aren't allowed in the Park," she returned, dejectedly.
