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conservation for a
new generation
Conservation for a
New Generation

Redefining Natural
Resources Management

EDITED BY
Richard L. Knight and Courtney White

Washington • Covelo • London

Copyright © 2009 Island Press

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 1718
Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009, USA.

Island Press is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Conservation in transition : new approaches to natural resources management /
edited by Richard L. Knight and Courtney White.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-437-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59726-437-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-438-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-59726-438-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Conservation of natuarl
resources. I. Knight, Richard L. II. White, Joseph Courtney, 1960-
S936.C66 2008
333.72—dc22
2008008687
Printed on recycled, acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 To Aldo Leopold, Wallace Stegner, and Wendell Berry,

and their belief that the answer is somewhere in the mix

of human and natural communities.

Go and find it.

 contents

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction 1
Richard L. Knight

CHAPTER ONE 11
This Place in Time
Curt Meine

******

PART I 31
Agencies and Institutions: The Need for Innovation

CHAPTER TWO 33
Natural Resource Agencies: The Necessity for Change
Antony S. Cheng

CHAPTER THREE 48
Public Lands: Better Policies from Better Politics
Daniel Kemmis

ix
x conservation for a new generation

CHAPTER FOUR 61
Parks and Protected Areas: Conserving Lands
across Administrative Boundaries
Jonathan Adams

Case Study One 77

Innovators Down Under: New Zealand’s Fisheries
Christopher M. Dewees

Case Study Two 83

When Government Respects Landholders:
Wildlife in Zimbabwe
Mike Jones

Case Study Three 89

Kinzua Deer Cooperative: Conservation
through Cooperation
Jeffrey Kochel

Case Study Four 96

Working Wildlands
Lynne Sherrod

******

Par t II 103
A Changing Toolbox for Conservation

CHAPTER FIVE 105

Conservation Planning: New Tools and New Approaches
Jodi A. Hilty and Craig R. Groves
 Contents xi

CHAPTER SIX 121

Community Planning: Challenges, Obstacles,
and Opportunities
Lora A. Lucero

CHAPTER SEVEN 135

Economic Incentives: Conservation That Pays
Luther Propst, Adam Davis, John Shepard,
and Nina Chambers

CHAPTER EIGHT 155

Ecosystem Services: The Nature of Valuing Nature
J. B. Ruhl

Case Study Five 170

Conservation at the Speed of Business
William J. Ginn

Case Study Six 177

California North Coast Forest Conservation Initiative
Chris Kelly

Case Study Seven 185

Ranching for Family and Profit
Kay and David James
xii conservation for a new generation

Part III 191

The Radical Center: Finding Common Ground

CHAPTER NINE 193

Food and Open Spaces Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide
Richard L. Knight

CHAPTER TEN 207

Land Health: A Language to Describe the Common
Ground Beneath Our Feet
Courtney White

CHAPTER ELEVEN 221

Reciprocity: Toward a New Relationship
Peter Forbes

Case Study Eight 235

Communication Networks, Leadership,
and Conservation in an African Seascape
Beatrice I. Crona

Case Study Nine 243

Farmer as Conservationist
James O. Andrew

Case Study Ten 249

Wallowa County: The Power of “We”
Diane Daggett Snyder
 Contents xiii

Case Study Eleven 256

Collaboration as Teacher
Dan Dagget

Case Study Twelve 263

Groundswell: Community Dynamics
from the Bottom Up
Todd Graham

******

CHAPTER TWELVE 272

Where Will the Moose Live?
Bob Budd

Conclusion: An Unprecedented Future 285

Courtney White

List of Contributors 297

Index 305
 acknowledgments

The inspiration for this book comes from two sources. First, our love for
the land and its life-sustaining virtues. When one realizes that our health,
prosperity, and happiness come from the land, love and concern for its
health inevitably follow. Second, our attempt to capture the new land-
people relationships that define today’s conservation derives from the
cumulative debt we feel to the many students, conservation practitioners,
farmers, ranchers, and foresters who have touched our lives, and from our
gratitude for their devotion to land health. Among these people we cer-
tainly include our contributors. For no other reason than that they care
about land and people did they add this extra burden to their already too
busy lives. Thanks to these special people, and thanks to the land!
RLK wishes to acknowledge his obligations to those who have inspired
him these many years. Though the list of his debts to others is long, he
would be remiss not to mention his parents, Ken and Ruth Knight; Nina
Leopold Bradley; Curt Meine, and his wife Heather. What defines them is
what captures all that is good in humans.
CW would like to acknowledge everyone involved with the Quivira
Coalition, whose dedication and good cheer have been the source of much
of his inspiration. He acknowledges also his family—his other source of

xv
xvi conservation for a new generation

inspiration—his wife, Gen, and their children, Sterling and Olivia, whose
future is a daily motivation.
Before our contributors submitted their essays we all assembled at
Colorado State University to meet one another and listen to one another’s
comments. That meeting was essential to the book project, but it also
allowed people from around the world to confirm their suspicions that con-
servation today is quite different from what it was only a decade ago. The
meeting was made possible by the Warner College of Natural Resources at
Colorado State University and by the Bradley Fund for the Environment of
the Sand County Foundation. Kevin McAleese, representing the Sand
County Foundation, was indispensable in planning the meeting. Mike
Eckhoff ably assisted us in the conference organization.
Last, we take great pleasure in thanking our editors, Barbara Dean and
Barbara Youngblood of Island Press. For readers contemplating their own
book projects, here’s an inside tip: Go with Island Press and just hope you
get to work with Barbara and Barbara!
 introduction
Richard L. Knight

I vividly recall a comment, nearly two decades ago, by a graduate student dur-
ing a seminar at Colorado State University. Faculty and students were listening
to a distinguished speaker explain the concepts behind the new discipline of con-
servation biology. Understandably, some faculty from my College of Natural
Resources were muttering under their breath while the speaker extolled the
virtues of this new entry to the field of conservation. In effect, my colleagues were
saying, “Why do we need a new discipline when, after all, our own fields of
wildlife, fishery, forestry, and range have been addressing similar issues for
decades and are doing just fine, thank you.” The student leaned over to me and
whispered,“These disagreements are a problem of your generation, not mine.”
What the student meant, of course, is that his generation, the next
cohort of natural resource practitioners, was excited and invigorated by the
flood of ideas coming from new disciplines entering the well-entrenched
fields of natural resources management. If we, the faculty, wanted to argue
the virtues and ills of those new disciplines, so be it—but his generation was
moving ahead and welcomed the changes. I got it!

* * * * *

Two decades ago, the arena of natural resources management was con-
fronted with a host of new disciplines (table I.1). Human dimensions,

1
2 conservation for a new generation

restoration ecology, landscape ecology, ecological economics, conservation

biology, environmental ethics, geospatial sciences, and other new fields
appeared, seemingly overnight, to expand the horizons of conservation
practitioners and university programs.1 What was different about those new
disciplines was their metadisciplinary nature. They were more broadly
based and more integrative than the traditional disciplines in natural
resources. For example, wildlife biology had become focused on the popu-
lation dynamics of single species—economically valuable species, endan-
gered species, or species that threatened human economies. Conservation
biology, on the other hand, took a more extensive view, from genes to
organisms to biotic communities to ecosystems. Likewise, landscape ecol-
ogy changed the way practitioners and academics viewed ecosystems, and
conversations in natural resources management were now enriched by
acknowledging the spatial and temporal dimensions of conservation work.
Human dimensions balanced the one-sided emphasis on the “scientific
management” of natural resources by admitting the importance of social
capital and the multidimensional nature of our diverse publics. Ecological
economics reminded us of the value of ecosystem services produced by
healthy lands; by emphasizing the economic importance of restored land-
scapes, it provided conservationists with a powerful argument for conserv-
ing rather than developing land.
Natural resources management today is quite different from what it was
decades earlier, and the changes have been remarkably well accepted.
Students and faculty alike seem comfortable with the more integrative and
crosscutting approaches. Practitioners also see the energy the new disci-
plines have brought to how we practice conservation. For example, fish and
wildlife managers have benefited enormously from the ideas of conserva-
tion genetics, minimum viable populations, metapopulations, spatially
explicit models, and new approaches in designing protected areas, all ideas
that emanated from the field of conservation biology.
 Introduction 3

Table I.1
Traditional and Emerging Disciplines in Conservation
Traditional Disciplines Emerging Disciplines
Forestry science Landscape ecology
Natural resource economics Ecological economics
Fishery science Conservation biology
Wildlife biology Environmental ethics
Watershed science Human dimensions in natural
Range science resources
Outdoor recreation Restoration ecology
Geospatial sciences

These new ideas have affected who is doing natural resources manage-
ment, as well. Governmental organizations (GOs), from city open-space
programs to state departments of natural resources to federal land-
management services, now employ human dimension specialists and hire
ecological economists. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have taken
the ideas of landscape ecology and conservation biology to new heights,
designing and implementing conservation strategies at landscape and
regional levels. It is safe to say that the number of job descriptions, as well
as the number of actual jobs, in the broad field of conservation and natu-
ral resources management has increased severalfold.
In the dynamic landscape of contemporary conservation, all of those
“emerging” disciplines are now well established; they have professional
organizations, journals, annual meetings, and memberships that are out-
pacing those of the traditional disciplines. In Colorado State’s Warner
College of Natural Resources, the outdoor recreation department has
changed its name to Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, while the
fish and wildlife biology department is now known as the Department of
Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology. Likewise, the forest, range, and
watershed programs have merged into a Department of Forest, Rangeland,
4 conservation for a new generation

and Watershed Stewardship with a robust emphasis on restoring degraded

watersheds and promoting healthy natural and human communities. That
student who spoke to me two decades ago was right: Change empowered
by the entry of new ideas was an issue of my generation, for what seemed
like radical ideas then are today universally embraced.
As natural resources management was experiencing profound
changes in its intellectual repertoire, our home planet and its inhabitants
were likewise showing significant alterations, ranging from destabiliza-
tion of the atmosphere to a global extinction spasm. And, because of our
burgeoning human population, inappropriate technologies, and rising
materialism, the earth is increasingly in a degraded state.2 The changes in
the health of the only planet we will ever know have hastened the
acknowledgment that land uses that decrease land health are nonsustain-
able, as are human communities dependent on those uses. Collectively,
those changes reveal the obvious: that human communities cannot sur-
vive and prosper on degraded lands, that land health and human health
are entwined, indivisible. Wendell Berry sank the stake when he wrote,
“You cannot save the land apart from the people or the people apart from
the land. To save either, you must save both.”3
What is needed now is not to revisit those “new” disciplines, for they
have become fully integrated into the traditional fields of natural resources
management. What is different from a decade or so ago is how the conser-
vation of natural resources is being practiced.
Inspired by Aldo Leopold’s writings,4 this new way of managing natu-
ral resources is captured by the following comment: “Conservation occurs
at the nexus of land use and land health. Therefore, conservation that works
is conservation that works well for both people and land. Actions that ben-
efit one at the expense of the other are not conservation, they are something
else. Healthy natural communities coincide with healthy human commu-
nities; the reverse seldom occurs.”5 This new way of doing conservation is
 Introduction 5

not opposed to human land uses, whether they be logging or outdoor recre-
ation. It is opposed to land uses that degrade the health of the land (in the
Leopoldian sense of “land health”6). In other words, natural resources man-
agement in the twenty-first century is all about land health and prosperous
human communities.
Historically, natural resources conservation was the result of federal
initiatives. Legislation was passed, appropriations provided, and new
programs implemented with a top-down approach.7 Today conservation
is often the result of bottom-up initiatives emanating from watersheds
and supported by local governments, tax incentives, and financial sup-
port from private entities and NGOs (table I.2). In the face of rapid
change, institutions, agencies, universities, and practitioners are experi-
menting with new approaches to natural resources management. On the
ground, practitioners are reexamining the role of institutions and agen-
cies and trying new forms of governance. In universities, teachers and
students are placing emphasis on topics such as human dimensions and
valuing ecosystem services. The private sector, whether NGOs or foun-
dations with money to support conservation, is becoming increasingly
important in shaping the landscape of conservation. The traditional
focus on wilderness protection is being augmented with the emerging
idea of working wildlands—that is, keeping lands productive while keep-
ing human densities low, thereby maintaining the capacity of the land to
support biodiversity.
Although there are many defining elements of this new strain of natu-
ral resources management, they all have in common the following elements
that revolve around land, people, institutions and organizations, ecology,
and economics:
• They work across administrative boundaries rather than staying
within them.
• They integrate social capital with ecological and economic dimensions.
6 conservation for a new generation

Table I.2
Contrasting Approaches to Conservation
Traditional Approaches
Top-Down Bottom-Up
Land use Land health
Litigation Cooperation
Federal monies and unfunded Economic incentives and private
mandates support
Public land Private-public land
Wilderness Working wildlands and landscape
linkages
Working within administrative Working across administrative
boundaries boundaries
Command and control Adaptive management
Single species Ecological processes and keystone
species
Disciplinary focus Metadisciplinary approach
Technical expertise Social capital

Note: These approaches are best viewed as a continuum rather than hard and fast dichoto-
mous categories.

• They encourage bottom-up participation rather than strictly top-

down initiatives.
• They acknowledge all biodiversity rather than only economically valu-
able species.
• They emphasize economic incentives rather than federal appropria-
tions and unfunded mandates.
• Finally, they are not exclusionary; rather, they are inclusionary. All
interests are welcome at the table, not just favorites at any particular
time. Translated, this means that all appropriate land uses are encour-
aged but, importantly, only to the degree that the land can sustainably
accommodate those uses.
 Introduction 7

Empowered by these concepts, hundreds of attempts to reinvent nat-

ural resources management have been occurring at the watershed level
nationwide.8 A defining component of most of those efforts is that they
have been locally initiated and are more bottom up than top down. Another
component they all share is that few of them were initiated by federal agen-
cies. Indeed, most federal, top-down efforts are increasingly sharing their
“authority of the resource” with more local agencies (state, county, city) and
NGOs (and, interestingly, rediscovering the ideas of early progressive
thinkers such as Lewis Mumford).9
Just as ecosystem management has never been codified by Congress,
the attempts taking place across the United States to build healthy human
and natural communities are, at best, only loosely structured by mandates
from the Beltway. It is time to capture the entrepreneurial strain that is pro-
viding the momentum around natural resources management in today’s
changing world. It is time to coalesce this vast amount of tinkering and
experimentation into a coherent blueprint for conservation that works. In
other words, now that conservation is being increasingly shaped by local
initiatives, it is time to examine whether this new model of conservation,
which is more regional and bottom up, is compatible with our equally fast-
shifting society and changing environment.
Our goal in this multiauthored book is to capture the dynamic state
of natural resources management in the years following the rise of ecosys-
tem management in the early 1990s. Almost every component of land–land
use–people relationships is in flux, and no one has yet attempted to capture
the change. The contributors to this book are actively engaged in these new
approaches. For every new approach to conservation described in the chap-
ters of this book, there is a case study by a practitioner highlighting how the
approach is working on the ground.
Our book consists of three parts bracketed by opening and closing
chapters that explore the fundamental truth that unites human and land
8 conservation for a new generation

communities: As one prospers, so does the other; as one declines, so, too,
will the other. In the opening chapter Curt Meine provides a narrative of
human health and land health through the eyes of a Cree Indian tribe north
of the Arctic Circle. Woven into his story is a capsule of conservation and
the stages it encompasses, beginning with unregulated exploitation of nat-
ural resources and moving to the development of conservation and preser-
vation, followed by environmentalism, and ending with the current para-
digm of ecosystem management.
Part I of our book, “Agencies and Institutions: The Need for In-
novation,” has three chapters and four case studies. The chapter authors
critically examine the need for the government agencies that manage our
public lands to partner with diverse stakeholders, NGOs, and other com-
ponents of the private sector in finding ways to promote healthy landscapes
along with prosperous human communities. Building on the need for agen-
cies to take a fresh approach to natural resources management, Part II
explores emerging tools in the new toolbox of conservation. Titled “A
Changing Toolbox for Conservation,” it has four chapters and three case
studies. Ranging from community planning to conservation planning, valu-
ing ecosystem services, and the need to use economic incentives that pro-
mote conservation, the topics of these chapters, along with the case stud-
ies that illustrate the effectiveness of these new tools, demonstrate how
natural resources management is changing. Part III, “The Radical Center:
Finding Common Ground,” consists of three chapters and five case studies.
The chapters demonstrate the need for cooperation on natural resources
issues that have historically divided us. The case studies illustrate how the
emphasis on the importance of building strong relationships in natural
resources management usually results in desired outcomes for both peo-
ple and the land. Following Part III, the book ends with a chapter by Bob
Budd and a conclusion by Courtney White. Budd tells a story of people and
place, the North Piney River in Wyoming, to illustrate the connections
 Introduction 9

between people who come to know and understand a watershed and the
resulting solicitude they show for the land’s health. Courtney White’s con-
clusion provides a synopsis of the book, as well as a peek into the future,
acknowledging the uncertainty that awaits us all.

* * * * *

What conservation is today is highly debatable. What is not debatable is that

effective conservation—today and in the future—will be different from
what it has been. To move successfully into our future, we need a vision that
configures the changes into a comprehensible pattern. Such a blueprint not
only will provide guidance to agencies and organizations, but also, and even
more critically, will offer a conceptual and pragmatic road map for students,
who are the future practitioners. Without such direction, it is certain that
their education will prepare them for a time that has passed. The hope of
this book is to provide that conceptual and pragmatic vision.

Notes
1. R. Knight and S. Bates, eds., A New Century for Natural Resources Management
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995).
2. United Nations, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (New York: United Nations, 2005).
3. W. Berry, “Private Property and the Common Wealth,” in Another Turn of the Crank
(Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1995), p. 56.
4. C. Meine and R. Knight, eds., The Essential Aldo Leopold: Quotations and
Commentaries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999).
5. R. Knight, “Bridging the Great Divide: Reconnecting Rural and Urban
Communities in the New West,” in Home Land: Ranching and a West that Works,
ed. L. Pritchett et al. (Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 2007), pp. 13–25.
6. B. Callicott and E. Freyfogle, eds., Aldo Leopold: For the Health of the Land
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999).
7. R. Nelson, “The Federal Land Management Agencies,” in A New Century for Natural
Resources Management, ed. R. Knight and S. Bates (Washington, DC: Island Press,
1995), pp. 37–60.
10 conservation for a new generation

8. S. Yaffee et al., Ecosystem Management in the United States: An Assessment of Current

Experience (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996); G. Meffe et al., Ecosystem
Management: Adaptive, Community-Based Conservation (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 2002).
9. B. Minteer, “Regional Planning as Pragmatic Conservation,” in Reconstructing
Conservation: Finding Common Ground, ed. B. Minteer and R. Manning
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003), pp. 93–113.
 ch a p te r o n e

this place in time

Curt Meine

We head north at sunset through choppy waters along the east shore of
James Bay. Fred guides our fleet of three fully loaded, twenty-foot freighter
canoes though a labyrinth of islands, mainland points, and submerged
granite ledges. Fred is the ouchimaw in this part of the Cree nation of
Wemindji. Among the James Bay Cree, the ouchimawch serve (in the words
of one student of their vital role) as “senior grassroots managers of this vul-
nerable ecosystem.”1
We have spent several days at the community’s annual gathering on
Old Factory Island, forty miles downshore as the canoe glides (figure 1.1).
Now we are heading back to the village, where the Cree relocated two gen-
erations ago, in 1959. Bouncing over the waves in the pink subarctic twi-
light, we pass islands crowned in dark spires of white spruce and balsam
fir. One small island catches my eye. Beneath a rise of barren granite, a
series of terraces steps down toward the chilly waters of James Bay. The
land around the bay in Quebec and Ontario is rebounding. At the time of
the last glacial maximum, twenty thousand years ago, this place lay buried
under five thousand meters of glacial ice at the heart of the Laurentide Ice
Sheet. The burden was so immense that it compressed the earth’s crust.
Over the millennia, as the great ice sheet melted back, the depressed land

11
12 conservation for a new generation

Figure 1.1 Old Factory Island, James Bay, Canada.

has sprung back. It is still rising. The geologist’s term for the phenome-
non is isostatic rebound.2 The Cree speak of “the growing land.”
The terraces on the small island are ancient beach ridges, each one
marking a pause in time as the land has grown. The terrain at Wemindji has
risen about seventy meters over the last six thousand years. It continues to
rebound at the rate of about a meter per century—fast enough to outpace
the rate of sea level rise that also came with the melting, fast enough even
to be noted across a human lifetime. Wemindji’s elders can tell you of places
that have emerged from the waters, of plants and animals living differently
here than they once did, of the Cree responding and adjusting.
My opportunity to be here has come through colleagues from McGill
University in Montreal who have joined the Cree in an innovative partner-
ship.3 The academics and the Wemindji Cree are collaborating on a proposal
 This Place in Time 13

to establish a protected area that would embrace two entire watersheds feed-
ing into James Bay. The proposed protected area would coincide closely
with the hunting territory that Fred oversees in his capacity as ouchimaw.
It is a creative proposal that defies traditional expectations—as well as
recent criticisms—of protected areas as a conservation strategy.4
The twelve hundred Cree of Wemindji represent the latest generation to
live upon, and with, the growing land. By almost any conservation standard
they have lived well here and have done so for some five thousand years. Cree
traditions and practices have served to reinforce a tight network of reciprocal
relationships connecting the land, the water, the plants and animals, the peo-
ple, and the spirit.
In the four centuries since the arrival of the Shaped-Wood People from
Europe, the resilience of those relationships has been constantly tested.5 Yet,
even against the backdrop of those last four centuries, the rate of change in the
last two generations stands out as remarkable. Transformation has come to the
culture, economy, and landscape of the James Bay Cree in a series of cascades,
one consequence after another: the forced relocation of Cree children to
government-supported residential schools;6 the movement toward permanent
settlement in Wemindji; the loss of the age-old pattern of families living a sub-
sistence life in “the bush” for half the year; the announcement in 1971 of the
Quebec provincial government’s vast plan for hydropower development in the
Cree lands east of James Bay; construction of the paved Route de la Baie James
to facilitate the hydropower plan. Now the pressure to open gold and diamond
mines in Wemindji country is growing. And in this subarctic land, the impacts
of global warming on the ice and wind, the plants and animals are noticed
even by the younger Cree. The Wemindji Cree wonder, along with commu-
nities around the world, how changes in their land will result in changes in
their identity—and vice versa—and how they ought to respond.
My academic colleagues and my new friends from Wemindji are gath-
ered to review the progress of their partnership. My appointed task, the
14 conservation for a new generation

reason for my even being here, is to offer a few relevant—I hope—words

about Aldo Leopold and the land ethic in the land of the Cree. I am not at
all convinced that this is possible.
The sun sets by the time Fred maneuvers our big canoe around the last
spruce-studded point, into calmer waters, toward the lights of Wemindji.

* * * * *

As we may learn from the growing land, the terra is only relatively
firma. Our science and our stories tell us that land changes and that human
communities change. They change in different ways, at different rates. They
change in response to each other. They change due to forces large and small,
long-term and immediate, far away and close at hand. Amid such change,
conservation aims to encourage ways of living by which we can meet our
material needs, allow ourselves and our communities to flourish, express
our human hopes, honor the beauty and mystery of the world, sustain its
biological diversity, and promote its ecological health.
These are complex and interrelated aspirations. In pursuing them, con-
servationists have had to change, as the movement that first fully emerged a
century ago has itself continually evolved. The story of conservation is one of
shifting philosophical foundations, increasing scientific and historical knowl-
edge, evolving public policy, and novel tools and techniques—all in dynamic
interplay, occurring within a larger world of relentless cultural, economic, and
environmental change.7 To gain perspective as conservationists on our own
place in time is no simple matter.
Conservation in its modern sense gained legitimacy and definition in
the early 1900s, in the wake of an unprecedented, three-decade wave of pri-
vate exploitation of North America’s forests, prairies, rangelands, fisheries,
and game populations. As conservation became official government pol-
icy under the leadership of President Theodore Roosevelt and his “chief
forester” Gifford Pinchot, the utilitarian definition of conservation as the
 This Place in Time 15

“wise use” of natural resources held sway. That definition carried corol-
laries: Conservation ought to serve “the greatest good for the greatest num-
ber over the long run”; it aimed to produce sustained yields of particular
commodities (timber, water, fish, forage, game); it would achieve those sus-
tained yields through efficient, professional, scientific management; it
would strive to ensure fair distribution of the wealth that flowed from
resource development. Conservation was conceived with the Progressive
Era’s faith in the capacity of science, technology, economics, and govern-
ment to correct the ills wrought by the unbridled abuse of natural
resources.
Meanwhile, walking with Pinchot but whispering into Roosevelt’s other
ear was their contemporary John Muir, the voice of a wilder America, of the
big trees and monumental landscapes, of that strain of conservationist that
sought to protect the beautiful, the unique, and the sublime. The preser-
vationists could make common cause with the utilitarians, sharing as they
did an appreciation of science and a faith in government’s potential for
effective administration. But they parted ways when “wise use” undermined
the aesthetic, restorative, and spiritual values of wild things and wild places.
The friction between utilitarians and preservationists would provide the
dramatic storyline for much of conservation’s long political drama across
the twentieth century.
Aldo Leopold and his generation of conservationists inherited this
philosophical tension in the 1930s and 1940s.8 It drove Leopold’s own con-
ceptual innovations and evoked his plea for a unifying land ethic.9 He could
not abide merely material definitions of progress or the economic deter-
minism and “ruthless utilitarianism” that in his view had disfigured the
American landscape and revealed flaws in the character of American cul-
ture. Neither could he abide that approach to conservation that segregated
aesthetics, averted its eyes from unpleasant economic reality, and sought
refuge in the “parlor of scenic beauty.”10 For all of its success in establishing
16 conservation for a new generation

itself in the public mind and in government agencies, conservation had

made scant progress toward reconciling its own multiple aims and achiev-
ing a more “harmonious balanced system of land use.”11
Leopold once noted that our advanced technologies served to “crack
the atom, to command the tides.” “But,” he continued, “they do not suffice
for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoil-
ing it.”12 That ultimate task could not be achieved simply by gaining new
scientific knowledge or developing new tools; it required an ethic to better
guide application of that knowledge and use of those tools. That ethic
would avail itself of new ecological understanding and encourage new ways
of valuing the nonhuman world. It would see land not merely as a com-
modity belonging to us, but “as a community to which we belong.”13 It rec-
ognized the interwoven history and destiny of people and land while
demonstrating broad commitment to the common good. It called upon us
all—as individuals and communities, producers and consumers, business
owners and land managers, citizens and elected officials—to assume
responsibility for the overall health of the land.14
Leopold gathered these ideas in “The Land Ethic,” the capstone essay from
his classic 1949 book A Sand County Almanac. The essay represented a bold
advance in conservation, a leap beyond both the rationale and the tensions
that had marked the young movement. In it, Leopold distilled the lessons
acquired by an entire generation of conservationists. They had witnessed (and
inevitably participated in) the mechanization and industrialization of the
landscape; weathered the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and World War II;
developed whole new fields and disciplines (including soil conservation, range
management, and wildlife management); and, for the first time, brought find-
ings from the emerging science of ecology into conservation practice.
“The Land Ethic” also anticipated the changes that would come with
the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s. With its
view of land not merely as a commodity but as “a community to which we
 This Place in Time 17

belong” and its call to sustain “the integrity, stability, and beauty” of that
community, “The Land Ethic” became a touchstone for subsequent gener-
ations of professional resource managers, landowners, and citizens alike as
they confronted profound changes in social and environmental conditions.
Conservation evolved in divergent ways after World War II. On the one
hand, it became a worldwide concern, and its professional ranks swelled.
It absorbed revolutionary scientific findings in fields ranging from pale-
ontology and geology to ecology and genetics. Its diagnostic and informa-
tion technologies grew vastly in sophistication. It began to address a suite
of concerns that accompanied the prosperity of the postwar years: the accel-
erated loss of wildlands; a growing list of threatened and endangered
species; nuclear proliferation and the threat of atomic warfare; air and water
pollution and other forms of environmental contamination; the develop-
ment and indiscriminate use of new artificial chemical compounds; the tri-
umph of the automobile culture; and the spread of suburbia.
On the other hand, conservation’s ability to integrate new information
and ideas, and to respond effectively to new threats, suffered in the postwar
years. The conservation movement, as such, was fragmented among publics
interested in various parts of the land (fish, game, soils, scenery, forests,
rangelands, parks, rivers, wilderness, trails, etc.). Professional resource man-
agers became increasingly specialized and focused on the output of their
particular commodities (sport fish, game animals, commodity crops, visi-
tor days, board feet, livestock forage, acre feet, kilowatts, etc.). The distinc-
tions of place were overwhelmed by the need to get out the cut, meet the
demand, enhance the visitor experience, maximize the output. Progress was
measured according to raw economic and political benchmarks rather than
any ethical one.
Along the way, conservation gave way to environmentalism. Environ-
mentalism in the United States came of age along with the postwar, largely
urban and suburban, baby-boom generation. Some older conservationists
18 conservation for a new generation

became environmentalists; others did not. Some younger environmental-

ists appreciated the strengths (as well as the shortcomings) of the older con-
servation tradition; others did not. In any case, the transition from the older
conservation movement to modern environmentalism left behind it a
tumultuous wake washing up against a complex and rocky shoreline. We
are still riding over the roiling waves, in heavily laden canoes.
Yet, in the aftermath of the environmental awakening of the 1970s, creative
conservationists began to challenge the fragmented, overspecialized, output-
driven approaches that dominated professional natural resources management
through much of the twentieth century. Over the last three decades, conserva-
tionists have gone about exploring, and inventing, a new approach, one that
seeks safe passage through the shoals of harsh political ideology, toward com-
mon ground. And in seeking to restore and sustain healthier connections
between people and land, conservationists have contributed importantly to a
still broader societal need: reclaiming the vitality of community life.
The experiment in partnership growing at Wemindji is but one exam-
ple of this flowering. We can also find such innovation in the more than
two hundred institutions and organizations that belong to Chicago
Wilderness, an extraordinary regional consortium that is redefining the
notion of conservation in urban settings.15 We find it in the Quivira
Coalition’s conventional wisdom-defying efforts to bring western ranch-
ers and diverse environmental interests together in the shared pursuit of
land stewardship and sustainable communities.16 We find it in charismatic
mega-landscapes, through the work of groups like the Greater Yellowstone
Coalition and the Blackfoot Challenge.17 We find it as well in less celebrated
places, through a vast, proliferating array of conservancies, alliances, land
trusts, initiatives, coalitions, networks, projects, partnerships, councils, and
collaboratives.
This still emerging approach seeks to work fluently across multiple
spatial scales, from the local to the regional to the global. It seeks also to be
 This Place in Time 19

aware of multiple time scales, seeing its goals through varied layers of time
and aiming to harmonize present and long-term needs. It sees land not as
a collection of discrete parts, but as a complex, changing whole. It recog-
nizes the need to work across disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries
and across entire landscapes. It appreciates degrees of human impact on
the land and the intricate interrelationships between the natural and the
cultural in any landscape. It aspires to sustain not merely yields but also the
ecological functioning that underlies and defines land health. It recognizes
the need to extend Leopold’s notion of the land ethic to embrace aquatic
and marine environments. It honors the bonds that link land to commu-
nity life, economy, and identity. It acknowledges a hard reality: that all our
places are weighed down by the overburden of past injustice and injury.
It holds that the sustainability of human communities and economies can-
not be defined apart from the land. It understands the necessity of com-
munity-based and participatory approaches in building the social foun-
dations for effective conservation.18
These are hopeful signs, indications that, a century into the conservation-
environmental movement, we might finally be getting the scale part, the
relationship part, and the integration part of conservation right.
Although this movement-with-a-movement has been growing rapidly,
its roots in conservation history reach deep. The standard narrative of envi-
ronmental history has emphasized the expanding role of governmental
agencies, wielding the stick of regulation and protecting public lands and
other common resources through legislation and top-down management
strategies. That narrative, however, misses the quieter, parallel development
over the last century of progressive, participatory approaches to conserva-
tion based in local places and dedicated to what we would now call the sus-
tainability of ecosystems, landscapes, and human communities.19 It is a rich
history that begs to be reclaimed. Examples of such approaches can be
found in the following categories:
20 conservation for a new generation

• Watersheds. Awareness of the fundamental significance of water-

sheds—as a geographical reality and as an organizing concept—dates
to the very origins of the U.S. conservation movement. In his 1864
classic Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh warned of “the great,
the irreparable, the appalling mischiefs” that occur at the watershed
scale due to destructive land clearing and ignorance of basic hydro-
logical processes.20 Marsh’s work provided the rationale for whole
fields of later conservation innovation: the landmark designation of
the water-conserving forestland of New York’s Adirondack Mountains
in the 1870s and 1880s; John Wesley Powell’s radical (and ill-fated)
proposals in the 1890s to organize development of the American West
along watershed lines; the designation of the early national forest
reserves in the 1890s and 1900s to protect the headwaters of western
streams. We can look back now upon the cooperative watershed
restoration projects that began in the early 1930s as important
antecedents of contemporary watershed- and community-based con-
servation projects.21
• Land trusts. As a force for private land conservation, the land trust
movement in the United States has expanded phenomenally in the last
several decades, with more than 1,700 land trusts now established
across the nation. As a tool for land conservation, the land trust has
been around for more than a century (with even older precedents in
England and elsewhere). In 1891 civic leaders in Massachusetts advo-
cated establishment of, and the state legislature chartered, the Trustees
of Reservations. It was “the first private organization that included the
essential features of a land trust: a mission dedicated to acquiring,
holding, and maintaining natural, scenic, and historic sites.”22 The
idea spread slowly in the decades that followed, with the incorpora-
tion of such small local organizations as the Connecticut Forest and
Park Association (1895) and the Society for the Protection of New
 This Place in Time 21

Hampshire Forests (1901). The full potential of the land trust concept
would be realized only after World War II, with the creation in 1946
of The Nature Conservancy as the first national land trust.23
• Cooperative resource management. When Garrett Hardin published his
classic essay “The Tragedy of the Commons” in 1968, he focused
attention on the inherent challenge of managing common resources.24
Often overlooked in the discussion that has ensued ever since are the
precedents for cooperative management of natural resources that lie
deep in the history of conservation. Indeed, they predate the conser-
vation movement per se and include indigenous stewardship practices
from cultures around the globe. In Europe, the establishment of town
forests dates to the Middle Ages. In New England, town forests were
created as early as 1711 (in New Hampshire) and were established in
state law throughout the region by the early 1900s. In the early
decades of the twentieth century, cooperative game protection asso-
ciations and experimental wildlife management partnerships emerged
as landowners and sportsmen-conservationists worked together to
restore wildlife populations and habitats.25 At the other end of the
spatial scale, we can find such examples as the complex efforts of state,
provincial, tribal, and national governments to comanage the Great
Lakes, which date to the early 1900s.26
• Ecosystem management. The emergence of ecosystem management in
the late 1980s and early 1990s was taken by some to be a radical and
unnecessary departure from traditional, practical approaches to the
management of natural resources. Others saw it as a false front for
even more egregious expression of those hubristic, heavy-handed
management approaches. An alternative view, however, recognized in
ecosystem management at least the potential to reclaim the legacy of
a better integrated, ecologically informed, and historically grounded
stewardship of the land (in Aldo Leopold’s sense of the term—the
22 conservation for a new generation

entire community of “soils, waters, fauna, and flora, as well as peo-

ple”).27 Lost in the post–World War II trend toward intensified, spe-
cialized resource development, that legacy from the 1930s and 1940s
began to reemerge in the 1980s under the more scientifically sophis-
ticated, globally relevant rubric of “sustainability.” That dovetailed
with the growing appreciation of conservation’s intrinsic cultural
dimension and the vital role of people and human communities in
attaining—or undermining—conservation goals.

The evolution of conservation approaches, then, is a much more com-

plicated story than we have generally accounted for. It is not a simple story of
heavy-handed, top-down, command-and-control, governmental coercion;
nor is it a simple story of progressive action realized solely through legislative
initiative and legal decision. It is a more interesting story of constant change,
occurring in different ways to meet different ends, involving a rich intermin-
gling of social, economic, cultural, and environmental needs and hopes.
The evolution of conservation, of course, continues. It does so now
amid sobering realities—realities that are converging in unprecedented
ways. The greater context in which conservation exists is changing. In hind-
sight, we can view the conservation movement as the twin companion of
the industrial age: It has grown as an idea, and a force for change and adjust-
ment, within a time of cheap and abundant fossil fuels. We know that those
energy sources are finite and that we may have already passed the point of
peak oil. We know, too, that the exploitation of fossil fuels has had unin-
tended consequences. Global warming is being experienced most directly
by the land and creatures and people of the high latitudes (the Wemindji
Cree among them), but no community on the planet will be immune to
its impacts. To these forces of change we can add other global mega-trends:
human population growth; the ever-increasing mobility and consumption
of that human population; the spread of invasive species; the erosion of bio-
 This Place in Time 23

logical diversity; the increased incidence of emerging diseases; the rising

demand for and consumption of freshwater; the degradation of the world’s
coastal and marine ecosystems. There was never a time like the one we have
entered. If conservation is to answer effectively the call of these times, it will
require unprecedented leadership, communication, and commitment.
It begins with us making connections; finding common ground; free-
ing our imaginations; and inventing new ways of thinking, being, and car-
ing in the world.
It begins with us, here, now.

* * * * *

When I was first invited to Wemindji, I learned a Cree word, Iyiyuuschii,

whose meaning I could not grasp. As I listened to those at Wemindji, it gained
definition. I began to translate it in my own mind as “the land of the people.”
But such a word cannot be simply construed.As explained by the students work-
ing on the project, “Depending on the context, iyiyuu can represent the Cree
people, all humans, or all life. Ischii can represent a hunting territory, Cree ter-
ritory, the entire earth, or the soil. Together, iyiyuu ischii signifies interacting life
on the land, with the perspective that the Cree people are not separate from the
living land and their territory is not separate from the earth as a whole.”28
What does this mean for my task at hand? What words can I possibly
offer my Cree hosts? Leopold’s land ethic is a complicated notion, repre-
senting a rich melding of western scientific knowledge, evolving ethical
standards, and shifting definitions of community. Leopold offered his land
ethic a little more than half a century ago. The James Bay Cree have had five
millennia to distill their land wisdom. It is embedded in their aatiyuuhkhn,
their sacred stories:

It is the responsibility of all peoples to protect and preserve the land.

Water is sacred and is life-giving.
24 conservation for a new generation

All peoples must live in harmony with the natural order.

There is medicine on the land, where beauty and strength can be found.
Knowledge comes from the Creator through the land.
Life is tied to and connected to the land.
Peoples must acknowledge, give thanks for, and honor what is received and taken
from the land.
Everything has a spirit.
Eeyouch and all the peoples of the world are connected to the spirit of the land.29

The Cree have endured upon this rich substrate of understanding.

What can I possibly say, here, now, in Iyiyuuschii?
I begin by expressing my gratitude for the opportunity to be here and
by invoking the great glaciers that once connected Wisconsin and
Wemindji. Dorothy Stewart, who serves as the team’s community liaison,
steps up to translate my remarks for the benefit of the Cree elders and other
community members. I hadn’t thought about that! Immediately, I make
adjustments. To allow time for translation, I cut my planned remarks in
half. In fact, I pretty much dispense with my plan. This is not about explain-
ing. This is about connecting.
I speak of geese. I was by now familiar with the vital role of the Canada
goose in Cree culture. The goose has been described as a “cultural keystone
species” for the James Bay Cree. The tails of the Air Creebec planes we flew
in to Wemindji bear a goose logo. The stories of the people and the geese
are thoroughly interwoven, as the Cree and the geese have continually
adapted to each other and to the land. The Cree have modified certain wet-
lands in the rising land to attract and support geese during the spring hunt.
The geese are an integral part of the story of change here, as they, like the
people, have responded to the advent of guns, bush planes, roads, and
hydropower development. Through it all, the Canada goose has remained
at the very core of Cree culture.
 This Place in Time 25

I ask Dorothy if she might translate a small bit of Leopold’s prose. It is

not from “The Land Ethic” but from an essay called “The Geese Return.”
Dorothy effortlessly translates into rhythmic Cree text she had never even
seen before. Leopold’s theme was connection: “By [the] international com-
merce of geese, the waste corn of Illinois is carried through the clouds of
the Arctic tundras, there to combine with the waste sunlight of a nightless
June to grow goslings for all the lands in between. And in this unusual barter
of food for light, and winter warmth for summer solitude, the whole con-
tinent receives as net profit a wild poem dropped from the murky skies
upon the muds of March.”30 After she completes the passage, Dorothy turns
to me and quietly remarks, “That’s so beautiful.”
Through all the changes in our lives, our times, and our places, amid
all the dimensions that we must bear in mind as we chart our way forward
together, there are those things that connect us: our humanity, the creatures
and our stories about them, the beauty and the injury we bear witness to,
the spirit that animates us, and the land that supports us all, everywhere, all
the time.

Notes
1. G. Whiteman, “The Impact of Economic Development in James Bay, Canada,”
Organization & Environment 17 (2004): 425–448. An alternative spelling for the
term is uuchimaau. The common English term is tallyman, a reference to the role
of the ouchimaw in counting beaver lodges for the Hudson Bay Company within
his hunting territory—part of the company’s historic efforts to address declines in
beaver populations.
2. E. Pielou, After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991). The retreat of the glaciers and the subsequent
rebound of the earth continues to shape landscapes and coastlines throughout the
North. For example, Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron were a single Great Lake
until the rising earth began to part the waters two thousand years ago. Because of
the differential rate of rebound in the Great Lakes basin, Superior has been gradu-
ally tipping southwestward, sloshing toward Duluth.
26 conservation for a new generation

3. The Web address of the Paakumshumwaau-Wemindji Protected Area Project is

www.wemindjiprotectedarea.org.
4. For an anthology built around the critiques, see J. Callicott and M. Nelson, eds., The
Great New Wilderness Debate (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998). See also
M. Chapin, “A Challenge to Conservationists,” World Watch 17, no. 6 (2004): 17–31;
P. West et al., “Parks and Peoples: The Social Impact of Protected Areas,” Annual
Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 251–277; and K. Redford et al., “Parks as
Shibboleths,” Conservation Biology 20 (2006): 1–2. Also see F. Mulrennan and F.
Berkes, “Protected Area—Policy Framework,” prepared for Paakumshumwaau-
Wemindji Protected Area Project (July 2006).
5. The complicated story of change and adaptation among the James Bay Cree has been
explored and debated widely over the last generation. See (among others) C. Martin,
Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978); A. Tanner, Bringing Home Animals: Religious
Ideology and Mode of Production of the Mistassini Cree Hunters (London: Hurst, 1979);
C. Bishop,“The Western James Bay Cree: Aboriginal and Early Historic Adaptations,”
Prairie Forum 8 (1983): 147–155; R. Brightman, “Conservation and Resource
Depletion: The Case of the Boreal Forest Algonquians,” in The Question of the
Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources, ed. B. J. McCay and
J. M. Acheson (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1987), pp. 121–141; R. Brightman,
Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human-Animal Relationships (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993); S. Krech, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York:
Norton, 1999); and F. Berkes, “Indigenous Knowledge and Resource Management
Systems: A Native Canadian Case Study from James Bay,” in Property Rights in a Social
and Ecological Context: Case Studies and Design Applications, ed. S. Hanna and M.
Munasinghe (Washington, DC: Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics
and the World Bank, 1999), pp. 99–109.
6. J. Milloy, “National Crime”: The Canadian Government and the Residential School
System, 1879 to 1986 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999).
7. See C. Meine, “Conservation Movement, Historical,” in Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, vol.
1, ed. S. Levin (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2001), pp. 883–896.
8. See B. Minteer, The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental
Thought in America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006).
 This Place in Time 27

9. See C. Meine, “Leopold’s Fine Line,” in Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold,
and Conservation (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004), pp. 89–116.
10. A. Leopold, Game Management (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933), p. 422.
11. A. Leopold,“Coon Valley: An Adventure in Cooperative Conservation,” in The River
of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, ed. S. L. Flader and J. B.
Callicott (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), p. 218.
12. A. Leopold, “Engineering and Conservation,” in River of the Mother of God, p. 254.
The original address was delivered at the University of Wisconsin in 1938.
13. A. Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1949), p. viii.
14. For background on Leopold’s concept of land health, see E. Freyfogle, Bounded
People, Boundless Lands: Envisioning a New Land Ethic (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 1998); A. Leopold, For the Health of the Land: Previously Unpublished Essays
and Other Writings, ed. J. Callicott and E. Freyfogle (Washington, DC: Island Press,
1999); and J. Newton, Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006).
15. The Web address of Chicago Wilderness is http://www.chicagowilderness.org. See R.
Platt, “Chicago Wilderness: Flagship of the Urban Biodiversity Movement,” remarks to
the Chicago Wilderness tenth anniversary, May 17, 2006, at http://www.umass.edu/
ecologicalcities/events/CWremarks.pdf. Chicago Wilderness magazine (http://chicago
wildernessmag.org) provides continuing coverage of the consortium’s work.
16. The Web address of the Quivira Coalition is http://www.quiviracoalition.org.
17. The Web addresses of these organizations are http://www.greateryellowstone.org
and http://www.blackfootchallenge.org.
18. For a more complete and developed discussion of these trends in conservation, see
B. Minteer and R. Manning, eds., Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common
Ground (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003), especially its concluding chapter,
“Finding Common Ground: Emerging Principles for a Reconstructed Conser-
vation.” See also G. Meffe et al., Ecosystem Management: Adaptive, Community-
Based Conservation (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002); and C. Meine,“The Once
and Future Land Ethic,” in Correction Lines, pp. 210–221.
19. C. Meine,“Conservation and the Progressive Movement,” in Correction Lines, pp. 42–62.
20. G. Marsh, Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965; originally published 1864), p. 200.
28 conservation for a new generation

21. In this context, see especially Leopold, “Coon Valley.”

22. R. Brewer, Conservancy: The Land Trust Movement in America (Hanover, NH:
Dartmouth University Press, 2003), p. 17.
23. Brewer, Conservancy, p. 32. The Nature Conservancy was founded in 1946 as the
Ecologists Union and changed its name in 1950. Brewer notes, “Other well-known
national land trusts were formed much later, the Trust for Public Land in 1972, the
American Farmland Trust in 1980, and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in 1985”
(p. 32).
24. G. Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, no. 3859 (December 13,
2009): 1243–1248.
25. See, for example, A. Leopold, “Helping Ourselves,” River of the Mother of God, pp.
203–208. This was a significant theme in Leopold’s work in the 1930s especially. He
surveyed the movement in several papers, including “Farmer-Sportsman Set-ups
in the North Central Region,” Proceedings of the North American Wildlife Conference,
February 3–7, 1936, Washington, DC (Washington, DC: Government Printing
Office, 1936), pp. 279–85; and “Farmer-Sportsman: A Partnership for Con-
servation,” Transactions of the 4th North American Wildlife Conference, February
13–15, 1939, Detroit (Washington, DC: American Wildlife Institute, 1939), pp.
145–149, 167–168. A particularly venerable example of cooperative wildlife man-
agement is Minnesota’s North Heron Lake Game Producers Association, which has
been meeting continuously since its founding in 1906; see http://www.nhlgpa.org.
26. See P. Annin, The Great Lakes Water Wars (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006).
27. A. Leopold, “The Ecological Conscience,” in River of the Mother of God, p. 345. See
R. Knight, “Aldo Leopold, the Land Ethic, and Ecosystem Management,” Journal of
Wildlife Management, 60 (1996): 471–474; J. Callicott, “Aldo Leopold and the
Foundations of Ecosystem Management,” Journal of Forestry 98 (2000): 5–13; and
Newton, Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey.
28. Y. Shu et al., Aa-Wiichaautuwiihkw: Coming Together to Walk Together. Creating a
Culturally Appropriate Watershed and Marine Protected Area in Paakumshumwaau
(Old Factory) James Bay, Quebec (2005), p. vi. Available at http://www.wemindji
protectedarea.org/assets/pdf/Aa_wiichaautuwiihkw_Report_2005.pdf.
29. M. Gnarowski, ed., I Dream of Yesterday and Tomorrow: A Celebration of the James
Bay Cree (Kemptville, Ontario: Golden Dog Press and the Grand Council of the
Cree, 2002), pp. 11–12. See also F. Berkes, “Environmental Philosophy of the Cree
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the boy scouts? You’ve been trying to imitate them with your
smattering about ‘spooring.’ Who said anything about spooring? Hold
on, now—I know what you’re going to say. Of course, there’s no
crime in all that. You can come down the road standing on your
head for all I care, but just the same I’m going to see what’s under
that stone.”
“I thought a scout feller was supposed—”
“Oh, a scout fellow is supposed to put this and that together,”
Harry interrupted with some impatience; “and if you think I came
here for the benefit of my health you’re mistaken.”
He stepped toward the stone and saw the other look
apprehensively at the house. His predicament was a sore one, and
Harry had foreseen and counted on it. If he precipitated a scuffle, it
would rouse the inmates of the house. If he didn’t, the game was
up. He fell back on the only course open to him—a weak attempt at
explanation.
“Haven’t I got a right to pick up what I find, hey? What business
have you got to trac—follow me, anyway? Haven’t I got a good right
to bring home anything I find?”
Harry disdained to answer. Kneeling, he raised the edge of the
stone. But the wretched boy who watched him could not quite stand
by and see that done. He put his big hand on Arnold’s shoulder, and
roughly thrust him back. Like lightning Harry’s hand was on his
ankle. He tripped, staggered clumsily, and went down with a thud.
When he had pulled himself together Harry was standing a few feet
away examining his find, but keeping a weather eye on his new
acquaintance. There was a wallet containing money and a letter. The
wallet and the money he thrust into his pocket; the letter he read as
best he could by the light from the window. It was dated several
days before, and read:

Dear Walter,—
I have no objection to the canoe if Mr. Wade approves.
You say several others have them. You had better take Al
Wilson to Ticonderoga with you and be sure you are getting
 a good one. I should say the one you mention would be a
bargain if it is in good condition.
Your examination papers are here and I want to talk
over this matter of the mathematics with you. Suppose you
run down home over Sunday. You could go back Monday or
Tuesday, and I’ll give you the money while you are here.
Yours,
Father.

All this was a puzzle to Harry, for there was no Walter in the
Oakwood troop. But he betrayed not the slightest surprise as he
spoke to the other boy.
“So you stole Walter’s canoe money, eh?”
“I found it in the road,” was the sullen answer. “I was going to—”
“Sure you were—you were going to hide it. What’s the matter—
afraid to let your folks know you found something in the road?” His
tone was full of contempt now, and he paused, in a quandary what
to do. He knew he could not arrest the farmer boy, and he was not
sure that he wanted to. He did not know that the crime had been all
but murder. His only feeling was that of disgust, and he surveyed the
great, clumsy figure before him from head to foot.
“Go on into the house,” he said impatiently. “Who’s in there, your
mother and father?”
“My mother.”
“Well, go on in and go to bed.”
“What are you going to do?” the wretched fellow asked
desperately.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, if you mean about you. I’ve
got to consult my scoutmaster. Go on in and go to bed—How old is
your mother?”
“She’s nearly seventy.”
Harry surveyed him slowly, contemptuously, from head to foot.
He did not understand dishonesty. “Well, go on in,” he repeated,
“and don’t wake her up. I guess you’re about through for to-night.”
He paused, looking steadily, curiously, at the other, as one might
look at a strange animal. Then he wheeled about and went silently
off across the field.
“Blamed if I know who Al Wilson is, or Walter, either, but if they
buy a second-hand canoe in Ticonderoga they get stuck. Jiminy, but
that Kid’s the greatest! I wonder what he’s been pushing into now.”

Gordon squatted before the dying signal-fire, an occasional gape

of stupendous dimensions distorting his round face. Below him the
camp slept peacefully. The dim light glimmered in the invalid’s tent,
occasionally blurred by the shadow of the “First Aid” boy moving to
and fro. Gordon knew now that his mind’s-eye picture of Arnold
arriving like a conquering hero was an extravagant vision. He knew
that the Albany scouts knew it, too.
“Al Wilson could not have done it,” said he, “nor any of the rest
of ’em. Nobody can do impossibilities. These fellows think it’s easy to
bring a ca-a-a-a—” He was trying to say canoe and gape at the
same time.
“Hello, Kid,” said a low, careless voice, almost in his ear. “What
are you doing here?”
“Harry!”
“Sure—who’d you think? Where’ve you been, anyway?”
“But Harry—”
“Who the dickens is Walter?”
The younger boy clutched his friend by the arm. “Harry—I—he’s
a boy here—they—did you—why—”
“I’ve got forty dollars belonging to him. What’s the news,
anyway?”
 CHAPTER X
THE SWASTIKA
In the morning it began, bright and early. Harry lay alone in the
tepee, dead to the world. Mr. Wade had been quietly roused by
Gordon and had accorded Harry this resting-place with strict
instructions to pay no attention to reveille. Gordon had crept back
among the sleeping Hyenas.
It started when the two boys who had gone in search of Harry
returned to camp a few minutes after reveille, passing the Hyenas’
tent.
“How’s Walter?” they called to the one or two who had risen
promptly.
“All right when we turned in. Any news?”
“No—couldn’t find a sign of his friend. He may have gone back to
Ticonderoga. He didn’t come along this road—that’s sure.”
“Maybe he’s up on Dibble Mountain making rice puddings.”
“Keep quiet, you’ll wake him.”
All this Gordon heard in a delicious half-sleep.
“We met a chap on a bicycle from a summer place up Crown
Point way—said he was hunting for a hand-bag a lady left on a stone
wall—auto broke down and she sat on the wall to wait for them to
fix it.”
“I haven’t it,” called one Hyena.
“You can search me,” said another.
“Guess she’ll never see it again.”
“Oh, she may, you can’t tell; the bicycle chap may find it.
Nobody’s likely to have noticed it on a stone wall at night—it’s early
yet. Honest, didn’t you hear anything of that Oakwood chap?”
“Didn’t we tell you, no?”
“Gone back to the log jam, I guess. The kid’ll be awful
disappointed. He’s got the bee in his bonnet that his friend’s as
clever as he is,—he’s a mighty nice little fellow.”
 “Sure, it’s fun to see him grin when you jolly him. Wade’s stuck
on him, all right.”
“Yes, and he’s got Al hypnotized.”
By this time the Hyenas were dragging themselves heavily from
their cots and sleepily aiding the conversation.
“I’d like to know what was the use of sending that message,
anyway. We might have known it wouldn’t do any good. Why, man
alive, if any one did sneak down that road, it must have been an
hour before we got the fire started. Chuck my belt over here, will
you, Dan?”
“Well, it was good exercise, anyway. Oh, but my arm is stiff!”
The camp was soon astir, and Gordon, wrestling desperately to
suppress his scout smile, came forth with the last stragglers. He
stood in the fresh morning air, watching the routine, which began
early. A boy with a pointed stick moved about, spearing papers and
depositing them in a box for burning. “No news of your pal?” said
he, as he passed. Gordon smiled and said nothing. Another boy was
hurrying here and there, filling, trimming, and wiping lanterns.
“Hello, Oakwood,” he called, “guess your patrol leader was asleep at
the switch when we sent that little fire note—don’t you care.”
Several others were rigging a rope fence outside Walter’s tent,
where a Red Cross flag had already been raised. Everything seemed
to move like clockwork. Two boys came in for firewood and departed
for more. One was sorting and chopping the pieces. Others were
setting the long table-board with plates, while the savory odor of
coffee came from the lean-to. Gordon wandered among these early
toilers, responding to a pleasant word or a good-natured taunt from
each, fascinated with this first view of genuine camp life.
Mr. Wade sat at a small table under a tree, while several scouts
hovered near, waiting his leisure. Al Wilson, standing at his elbow,
beckoned to Gordon.
“Don’t you worry,” said he. “No doubt your friend is all right. I
think he may have gone into Ticonderoga. Most of the folks around
here know our camp, and I guess you’ll see him come walking in
before the day’s over. And don’t think that he ought to have made
good—it was impossible.”
 “The fellows say you could have done it,” ventured Gordon.
“Well, I couldn’t. I might have made out the message, but that’s
all the good it would have done me. None of us can do the
impossible, can we, Mr. Wade?”
“Not as a rule,” said Mr. Wade, intent on his writing. Presently he
handed three small pieces of birch-bark to a boy, on each of which
was written in lead pencil, “10:30.” These were for the patrol leaders
and meant, “Come to council.” Atwell, leader of the Hyenas, received
his while helping to raise the colors, and was puzzled. Al read his in
silence and was puzzled, too, but knew better than to question his
chief. Frankie, leader of the Elephants, standing in the door of his
tent, took his with great condescension.
“Frankie got a pretty picture card?” asked a passing scout. For
answer, Frankie let fly a huge, overripe pear, which went to its mark
with deadly precision.
“I suppose you know those Hyenas are a bunch of jolliers,” he
remarked to Gordon, who stood near.
“I don’t mind that,” Gordon answered.
“Well, you would if you were I. But I’ve got a way to fix them.
It’s my corporal’s idea. You’re going to be here through to-day, aren’t
you? Well, you’ll see some fun. I’ve got to attend council at ten-
thirty, and after that I’ve called a special patrol meeting to consider
the plan.”
“Peek-a-boo, Frankie,” called a passing boy.
“That’s one of the worst of the lot,” said Frankie, confidentially.
“What’s the plan?” Gordon asked.
“You’ll see—it’ll be the Laughing Elephants by to-night.”
In a little while came the call to prayers, then breakfast. There
was a camp historian in the Albany troop whose business it was to
record the doings of each day and to read the entries of the day
before, every morning before the campers rose from the early meal.
Since the patrols often went about their pleasures separately and
the boys were wont to wander off in pairs for a day of fishing,
stalking, or exploring, it fell out that this record often contained
matter unfamiliar to the camp as a whole, and so its reading was
awaited with interest.
 This morning, owing to the affair of Walter Lee, it would have a
special interest. For Mr. Wade had been so much occupied during the
evening and night before that none had ventured to question him.
When the meal was finished Henry Earle, the historian, rose at
his place and, according to custom, first announced the camp
routine for the day.
Plans for any special expeditions were submitted to Mr. Wade and
then handed to Earle. From these he now read:

“The Raven patrol attends to the cooking from to-day

until the 10th inclusive. Not more than two members to
leave camp at one time for longer than an hour. No sentry
duty. Collins relieved of all patrol duties because of troop
duty.” (Collins was “First Aid” boy.) “The Hyena Patrol
canoes to the Lake this afternoon for fishing. Elephant
Patrol to accompany them for outing and assistance.”
(Smiles from the Raven Patrol.) “Meals as usual. Camp-fire
yarns to-night. Blake to go into the village for mail and
errands; must have commissions and letters before eleven
o’clock. Patrol leaders in conference with scoutmaster at
10:30. No leaves of absence for this evening.”

He thrust the papers into his pocket and took up his book. The
brief record of Walter Lee’s return, with the circumstances, was read.
Gordon’s name was mentioned without comment or compliment.
The troop listened attentively.

“The suspicions of robbery were entertained,” Earle

read, “because of a footprint and other signs near the
chasm. The visit of two country boys to camp a few days
ago and the conversation they heard about Walter’s visiting
home to get money for a canoe were regarded with some
suspicion. It was thought that the fugitive might have taken
the road under the hill, and as the friend and scout partner
of Gordon Lord was supposed to be waiting for him on the
road under Dibble Mountain, a Morse signal message was
 sent up telling Lord’s whereabouts and asking him to watch
the road. But the fugitive, it appears, did not take the
road.”

At this sentence the boys started, and a stir of surprise passed

round the board. Even the quiet Al Wilson looked inquiringly at Mr.
Wade. Gordon wrestled valiantly with his scout smile, and looked
straight before him.

“At ten minutes after two this morning,” the reader

continued, “a scout, Harry Arnold by name, leader of the
Beaver Patrol, 1st Oakwood, N. J., Troop, brought to camp
and delivered to Mr. E. C. Wade, Scoutmaster, a wallet
containing two letters and forty dollars belonging to Walter
Lee.”

Murmurs of astonishment followed this announcement. Gordon’s

eyes were riveted upon a distant tree.

“The full details of how he received and read the Morse

message, made sure that no one had gone along the road,
traced the robber by means of finger prints on the flooring
of a bridge, and followed his trail over hard land by the
print of a nail embedded in his shoe; how he came upon
the thief in the very act of hiding his booty near his home,
took it from him and brought it here; these details belong
to the history of the 1st Oakwood Troop, Oakwood, N. J.,
and will constitute a glorious page in that troop’s annals.”

Gordon, still looking straight before him, had conquered his scout
smile; yet he was not wholly victorious, for instead his eyes were
brimming over.
“Where is he? Where is he, anyway?” shouted several boys,
jumping up. Cattell rose, knocking over a cup, stumbled round the
board, and clapped Gordon on the shoulder. “Where is he?” he
shouted. “Let’s have a look at him.” Al Wilson came around and
placed his arm over Gordon’s shoulder, smiling, saying nothing.
Some one suggested the tepee, and it was not till a roystering,
shouting group had started in that direction that Gordon got himself
under control. They did not wait for him. They had forgotten him.
But Harry Arnold, his chum, his friend, his idol, had made good, as
he always made good, and they were going to honor him. This was
joy enough for Gordon. Then, realizing what they were bent on
doing, he rushed pell-mell in pursuit, and coming between them and
the closed tepee, spread out his arms.
“You can’t go in, fellows,” he panted. “He’s asleep and Mr. Wade
doesn’t want him waked up. He’s awfully tired—honest, he is!” Then,
as they paused, he said, as if on second thought, and so as not to
make their disappointment too heavy, “But if you come quiet, you
can peek in and take a look at him if you want to.”

An hour later Harry sat down to a belated but welcome

breakfast, served by enthusiastic Ravens who rejoiced in their
special privilege to minister to his comfort. A continually changing
group lolled about the long board, asking questions and commenting
on his exploit. He answered all their questions in his easy, careless
way, correcting when they overrated the difficulty of this or that.
“Oh, no,” he said, answering one of Al Wilson’s questions, “hard
ground’s better than soft when there’s a loose nail in a shoe or
anything sticking on the sole—there’s nothing hard about following
that—anybody could do it.”
“That’s just like him! That’s just like him!” cried Gordon, excitedly.
His breakfast over, Harry wandered about, a dozen Albany scouts
surrounding him. Gordon walked over to the boy who was clearing
the table and whispered to him confidentially. “You can’t get him to
wear a belt,” said he. “Red Deer tried to, and his corporal gave him
an alligator-skin one, but he wouldn’t wear it—he just wears that
book-strap. And we can’t get him to wear the scout uniform—he
likes that blue shirt,—he’s very funny about some things.”
“Eccentricities of genius,” suggested Al Wilson, who stood near.
“He won’t even wear a coat,” said Gordon.
“Never mind,” said Al, “let him wear what he likes.”
 There was never a happier boy than Gordon Lord that morning.
In the excitement of Harry’s coming his own adventure of the day
before had fallen into the shadow. No one spoke of that now, but
Harry knew about it and had praised him, and that was enough. He
was constantly near his friend, feasting on the praises which Harry,
much to his discomfort, was forced to hear. The rule requiring a
scout to “smile and look pleasant” was obeyed by Gordon to the full
ability of his mouth. But the climax of his triumph was reached as
they sat about under a huge oak waiting for the early dinner which
was to precede the trip down to the lake. Harry lolled indolently on
the sward, amusing himself with mumbly-peg, and occasionally
joining in the conversation.
“Wonder if that bicycle chap found the bag he was after?” one
said.
“Like enough—nobody’d see it in the dark and he was out early.”
“What kind of a bag was it, anyway?”
“Oh, kind of—this—what do you call it—mesh-work, he said.”
“Bottle of smelling salts in it?” asked Harry, as he twirled his jack-
knife and sent it plunging into the earth.
The boys stared.
“Sure,” answered one of those who had met the bicyclist. “What
do you know about it?”
Harry laid the blade of his knife between two fingers, eyed it
critically, and struck the bone handle with the first finger of his other
hand. The knife made four complete somersaults and landed upright
in the grass.
“Handkerchief—sixteen cents?” said he.
“Sure!” cried the astonished boy.
Harry fumbled in his pocket, brought forth the reticule, and slung
it by its chain to the boy who had spoken. Then he held his knife
suspended vertically and, forming a ring with his thumb and finger
about twelve inches below it, dropped the knife through the ring.
“Can you do that, Kid?” he said to Gordon, who sat near him.
“Where’d you get this bag?” asked the boy who held it.
“Picked it up on a stone wall near where there’d been an
automobile accident.”
 “How did you know there was an automobile accident?” chimed
in another.
“Oh, I don’t know—just noticed it—that is, the signs of it—there
was an auto, that’s sure, and somebody doing acrobatic tricks in the
road. Who does the bag belong to, do you know?”
“Lady in Crown Point, that’s all I know.”
“We’ll have to hunt her up, Kid; here” (handing the knife to
Gordon) “try this—it’s a good trick—I bet you pull your fingers away.
This is the hardest one I ever did.”
“Then you admit there’s something hard you can do,” laughed Al
Wilson, admiringly.
“Oh, yes,” Harry laughed back. “I’m the star mumbly-peg player
—hey, Kid?” And he slapped Gordon on the shoulder. But Gordon
was too astonished to speak.
The meeting of the patrol leaders with Mr. Wade had taken place
earlier in the morning, but no one had been able to get a clue as to
what it was all about. Frankie carried himself with an air of profound
mystery—but that was for reasons of his own. Of course, Al Wilson
knew, but you couldn’t pry anything out of Al with a crowbar.
The dinner hour came, and it was a merry company that
gathered around the rough, tree-shaded board. The trip to the lake
was discussed, talk of canoes, fishing tackle, and such things went
round, and an occasional remark, in a particularly loud, significant
tone, about Frankie and the Elephants, passed from one Hyena to
another. But the Elephants paid no heed to these flippant
observations.
When Mr. Wade rose from the table, he asked the entire troop to
gather in fifteen minutes under the “assembly tree.” This was a
spreading oak from whose low branches hung a variety of forest
trophies, masterpieces of whittling and willowworking (the product
of rainy afternoons), and other specimens of camp handiwork. About
six feet from the ground a rough board with ragged ends had been
fastened to the trunk, on which was carved the quotation:
 And this, our life, exempt from public haunts,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

This had been their meeting-place ever since they started camp.
Here two of Frankie’s patrol, the Stetson brothers, having come from
the city to join the scouts, had stood in the dim, solemn light under
the thick branches, and taken the Scouts’ Oath to do their duty to
God and country, to help others at all times, and to obey the Scout
Law. Here Fred Brownell, Hyena, had stood before the Court of
Honor and received from Mr. Wade’s hand the badge for
marksmanship, which Frankie’s vote had helped to award him. For
Frankie was incorruptible in the discharge of public duties, and his
worst jollier could be sure of justice at his hands.
The full troop always gathered here for morning prayers and to
sing the patriotic anthem when the sun went down. There was
always a quiet atmosphere under this green roof, and the boys, as
they straggled into the old tree’s shade, removed their hats and
stood together in little groups. Harry and Gordon stood apart.
Presently Mr. Wade came out of the tepee and through the
assembled boys to his usual place, directly under the rustic sign.
“Scouts,” he said, “it is written in the law that it is a scout’s duty
to be useful and to help others, even though he give up his own
pleasure or comfort or safety to do it, and that he is bound to carry
out an order to the very best of his ability, and to let nothing
interfere with his doing so.”
(“He means you,” whispered Gordon.
“Nonsense!” answered Harry.)
“If he be a good scout, he may conceive a mere suggestion, a
hint, to be an order, and map out his own path of duty as if he were
acting under command. The path may lead him among strangers. He
may have to decide his duty, standing alone, without counsel, in the
darkness of the night. But that is the law.”
(“He does mean you,” protested Gordon.
“Keep still, will you.”)
 “The hint may come to him in such a way that an ordinary boy—I
had almost said an ordinary scout—could not have known his duty
from it. We are not all equally favored by Providence.”
(“There, what more do you want?” whispered Gordon, excitedly.
“Nonsense,” said Harry, blushing a little.)
“He may limit himself to the letter of the law if he chooses,”
continued Mr. Wade, “but he usually follows its spirit. The path of his
duty may wind its way through hardship or suffering or peril, but
these things he will not see.”
(“Tha—”
“Keep still, I tell you!” whispered Harry.)
“If he be a scout favored by the gods and have the gift of
prowess—”
(“That’s you, sure!”
“Oh, give us a rest!”)
“—the measure of his achievement may be large, and applause
and admiration follow after him to pay him tribute.”
(Harry managed with difficulty to control Gordon.)
“The path may lead him to the wounded, the dying. It may bring
him face to face with the guilty and the desperate.”
This time Gordon had no chance to whisper, for a shout went up
that echoed back from the hill to meet another and still another,
yelled out by a score of boys, who waved their arms and threw their
hats in the air.
“Hurrah for Oakwood! Hurray for the Beavers! Hurray for the
Beavers’ leader! Hurray for Gordon Lord!”
Mr. Wade’s upraised arm could not stem the tide, nor could
Gordon turn it all upon his friend. His attempt to do so, the tendency
that he had shown from the first, only increased their admiration
and enthusiasm for him. It was as if a dam had burst and
overwhelmed him—a dam which had been seeking vent for two
days. Harry patted Gordon proudly on the shoulder.
“Hurray for Oakwood!” went up again and again. “Hurrah for
Harry Arnold! Three cheers for Kid Lord!”
A rousing “tiger” was given, and then Mr. Wade motioned again
for silence.
 “I have been authorized by our three patrols,” he said,
“represented by their leaders, to present to Harry Arnold, leader of
the Beaver Patrol, 1st Oakwood, N. J., Troop, and to Gordon Lord,
one of his scouts, the swastika badge of gratitude.
“These badges were made especially for our troop,” he went on,
looking toward Gordon and Harry, “and were planned by us as a
means of offering some grateful tribute to those who, whether
scouts or not, may chance to do us some special service. Intrinsically
they are mere trifles,” he said, holding up a small swastika of narrow
band silver, “but they will serve as souvenirs to keep in memory
deeds of which you two boys may be justly proud. They are given
‘lest you forget’ for your memories, it appears, are poor. One of you
has already forgotten his achievement of last evening in praising the
achievement of his friend; and his friend’s interest in mumbly-peg
seems to be so great that he can remember little else.”
A general laugh followed this.
“He’s got eyes in the back of his head,” Frankie whispered
confidentially, in Harry’s ear. “He’s on to everything.”
“These little testimonials of our admiration and gratitude are
given you with the wish that you will remain with us as long as you
can. But we realize that you are searching for your own troop, and
we must not detain you long. It is the earnest request of our three
patrols, who agree in this if in nothing else” (he glanced slyly at
Frankie and at the Hyenas’ leader) “that you, at least, remain for
camp-fire this evening and let us have you for our guests one night
more.”
Harry stepped forward and received the little silver swastika
badge in his easy, offhand, but not ungrateful manner; then Gordon,
beaming with pride and delight, and smiling his scout smile from ear
to ear. It was the first honor he had received from the Boy Scouts,
and though many honors were to come his way, there was never
another one which gave him just the same pleasure. And though he
was destined to learn much, there was one thing that he never
learned, and that was why, with such a fellow as Harry Arnold to
admire, scouts, young and old (to say nothing of scoutmasters),
loved to make him smile his scout smile and persisted in helping
him, in jollying him, in liking him, and in cheering him like wild
Indians whenever they got the chance.
 CHAPTER XI
FRANKIE SQUARES ACCOUNTS
“Come, come, hurry up, Frankie! Don’t be all day! Are you all
there? Where’s the Stetson twins?”
“Coming,” answered Frankie, as he and three of his patrol
reached the shore. “What’s in that bottle?”
“Soothing sirup, in case you cry,” said a boy, who was bailing out
the dory.
Frankie and his scouts got into the boat, and soon the Stetson
twins (aged ten, the very youngest of the troop, and known as
“tenderfeetlets”) came down. One of them, “Giant George,” was
hardly big enough to see without a magnifying glass, if you care to
believe Atwell, but he made up in fearlessness and resolution.
“There mustn’t be more than one boy in the boat with Giant
George,” spoke up Brownell. “Mr. Wade says we must run no risks.
Who’s willing to volunteer to paddle the canoe occupied by Giant
George?”
“I’ll take that job,” said Harry Arnold.
“Got a good muscle?” asked Brownell, seriously.
“I guess I can manage it,” smiled Harry.
“All right; now, let’s see. Frankie, Corporal Tommy, Eddie Worth,
and Charles Augustus Denning in the dory—here, Atwell, it’s up to
you—get in and keep your eye on this bunch. Now, William Stetson,
hop in the canoe there with Oakwood” (meaning Gordon), “and I’ll
make up the trio.” This left four members of the Hyena Patrol, who
got into the other canoe.
The stream flowed about a quarter of a mile from camp, and,
passing under the three roads which had figured in the night’s
adventures, wound through a beautiful, wooded valley into Lake
Champlain. The dory, flying Frankie’s official banner ostentatiously at
its stern, headed the procession, and the three canoes hovered
about it, gliding easily upon the current. Now one of them would
swerve near the majestic flagship to make some slurring comment
on the Elephant Patrol, now dart forward like a playful child to await
the squadron under low-hanging boughs farther down the stream.
Now and again a lazy frog, startled by the passing pageant, dived
into his muddy sanctum, and here and there along the way the birds
complained to one another of this invasion of their domain. The
scene was peaceful, quiet, and one might fancy the adventurous
Champlain exploring these same woods in his own rough, Indian-
paddled craft, many years before. Only, where the colors of France
or the banner of the French Jesuits once grazed the overhanging
branches, now the flag of the Elephant Patrol waved gayly and
defiantly in the breeze. And never had the bold Champlain such a
startling enterprise to carry through as the young leader of the
Elephants.
Harry managed his canoe as an experienced driver manages his
horse. He never appeared to exert himself. He never had to undo
the effect of one stroke with that of another. “Giant George,” his sole
passenger, sat in the bow and watched him with unbounded
admiration. The canoe containing the four Hyenas had been skirting
the shore and its passengers had been reaching out and plucking
leaves or twigs or berries. Now one of them called out:
“Here, Giant George, have a pear?”
Giant George’s small hands went up to receive the luscious
missile which bounded through the air.
“Ouch!” he said, as he caught and dropped it.
“What is it?” Harry asked.
“Burs!” Giant George answered.
“Sit in the middle, Giant George, and don’t bear down too hard,”
came from Atwell, in the dory.
“Hey, Giant George, sit in the middle!” shouted Brownell,
excitedly. “What are you trying to do, tip the canoe?” Others took up
the cry, yelling at him to sit in the middle, till they had stirred up
quite a panic. It was difficult to sit anywhere except in the middle,
for Giant George was wedged into the bow where there wasn’t
anything but middle, but he sat straight upright and was very much
frightened. Then he began to shake the hand which stung him from
catching the burs.
“Don’t do that!” came from a neighboring canoe. “My, but you’re
reckless! Shake the other one too if you must shake!” Poor Giant
George was very much frightened, until presently an assuring word
came from Frankie.
“Splash some water on them,” he called. But Giant George would
not budge.
“Don’t you mind them,” said Harry. “Suppose I lose you
overboard and we’ll make one of those Laughing Hyenas go in after
you.”
“I can’t swim,” said Giant George, promptly.
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” said Harry, looking the little fellow
over with an amused grin. “But you don’t need to sit so straight, and
you can shake your hand all you want to—they’re only joking you.”
“We’re going to get square on them,” said Giant George,
encouraged by Harry’s show of friendship. “My patrol leader’s got a
scheme to make them laugh on the other side of their faces; he’s
awful smart—Frankie is.”
“What’s the scheme?”
“Well, I can’t tell you yet, but you’ll see. Will you stand by us?”
“Surest thing you know. I’m with the Elephants to the last ditch.”
“Hey, Oakwood,” some one called to Harry; “don’t let him jolly
you. Here you go, Giant, catch this!” But Giant George was out of
the business of catching things.
Presently Gordon’s canoe came alongside Harry’s, and naturally
enough a race was in order. Gordon was much troubled. He did not
want to be in the losing canoe, but he did not want to see Harry
beaten. There was not much danger of this, however, for Brownell
had plenty to learn in wielding the paddle. The two canoes shot
forward, Brownell taking the lead and splashing water over his rival.
Harry soon passed him, however, making neither sound nor spray,
and a loud cheer went up, to the delight of Giant George, who was
very proud of his companion.
Harry’s swift glide brought his canoe into a marshy basin filled
with reeds, beyond which was Lake Champlain.
 “Don’t push through there,” called Brownell; “run her up and we’ll
cut across that little cape.”
The craft were all drawn up on the shore, and Gordon and Harry
saw that a walk of some two minutes across a little grassy point of
land would bring them out upon the lake. A beaten path ran here,
and it was evident to the two Oakwood boys that this was the
customary way to reach Lake Champlain.
“Now, Frankie,” said Atwell, “here’s your happy hunting ground;
get busy and dig us some bait while we’re over having a soak.” The
Hyenas, one and all, undressed, throwing their clothing into the
boats and putting on their trunks. Gordon and Harry followed suit,
wearing trunks which had been lent them by the Ravens.
“Come, Giant George, hurry up!” called Atwell, as George
stepped gingerly from his canoe. “Who’s got the can, anyway?” The
can was not to be found. “Well, that’s a nice fix to get us in, Frankie;
here, let’s have that bottle—you’ll have to put the bait in that.”
“How’ll we get ’em out?” asked Brownell.
“Just whistle and they’ll come out.”
“Let’s have the bottle a minute,” said Gordon.
“Let him have it,” laughed Harry; “he’s got a way.”
And sure enough, he had. He placed the bottle between his
knees, wound a piece of fishing line once around it just below the
neck, pulled it rapidly back and forth for several seconds, then
plunged the bottle into the water. The neck remained in the stream
and Gordon handed to Brownell a perfect drinking cup, smooth and
even where it had broken off.
“Good for you!” exclaimed Atwell.
“Isn’t he the greatest!” said Frankie.
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon.
“Here, Frankie,” said Brownell, “you and the youngsters get busy
now. We’ll be back in half an hour and fish upstream a ways. Good-
by, Giant George.” The group passed out of sight, and the Elephants
gathered faithfully about their leader.
“That big Oakwood fellow’s with us,” spoke up Giant George; “he
said he’d stand by us to the last ditch.” This was encouraging, for
with the exception of Frankie, they were a little fearful and had a
cowardly tendency to backslide. But the patronage of such a scout
as Harry Arnold reassured them, and Frankie’s enthusiasm and
resolve lent them courage.
“Quick, now,” said he, “one of them may be back any minute. Put
your hand up inside my jacket, George. Feel that cardboard?” Giant
George presently loosened from under his leader’s garment a large
square of cardboard on which was printed:
THE ELEPHANTS’ COMPLIMENTS
TO
THE HYENAS
This was fastened to a tree in a conspicuous place, while other
members of the patrol went through various extraordinary
contortions to release from under the rear of their jackets other
squares of cardboard, bearing a variety of significant observations:
CAMP TWO MILES
TAKE FIRST PATH TO LEFT
BEWARE OF PINE NEEDLES

AFTER YOU, MY DEAR HYENAS

TEN CENTS TO SEE THE

LAUGHING HYENAS LAUGH!

ELEPHANTS SUDDENLY CALLED

BACK TO THE JUNGLE

HAVE A LEMON, ATWELL?

DON’T FORGET SCOUT LAW,

“SMILE AND LOOK PLEASANT”
“Take one shoe from each pair,” Frankie ordered. “They can’t
wear the other one, and it will make something for them to carry.
Same with socks and stockings. And leave them one garter each.
Now pitch the rest—everything—in the boat.”
In less than five minutes the tree trunks were decorated with
signs and artistic representations of hyenas laughing, ironic
directions for reaching home, and so forth. From one tree there
dangled here and there an odd shoe, an odd sock, or a garter. A sign
proclaimed this “The Shoe Tree,” and another sign invited the
beholder to “Help Yourself.”
In one canoe they laid, in two neat piles, Harry’s and Gordon’s
clothing, shoes and all, and upon them a sign which read:
FOR THE OAKWOOD SCOUTS
TO COME HOME IN
(BE SURE TO SIT IN THE MIDDLE)
Then, after Frankie had contemplated his work admiringly for
fully half a minute, the Elephant Patrol pushed off the boat, and
towing the two canoes behind, turned their prow gleefully upstream
and rowed away with the official banner of the Elephants flaunted
gayly at their stern.
Meanwhile, the afternoon “soak” had begun. The lake was
narrow at this point and across the water they could see the
Vermont shore rising gradually, and beyond the Green Mountains,
onetime home of the adventurous Ethan Allen. The little Lake
Champlain steamer, making a prodigious racket for its insignificant
size, came tooting down, and a deckful of summer tourists waved
their handkerchiefs to the boys. On the shore stood an old, disused
railroad water tank (for the railroad hugs the shore here), and across
the top of the butt which stood on lofty spindles the boys had
fastened a springy board for diving.
Scarcely had they reached the shore when every one of them
was splashing in the water. Gordon found it much warmer than at
the sea beach where he was used to bathing. But he was a novice at
swimming and, despite the pleasure he took in bathing, had been
slow to pick up the art. He explained this by saying that he “tried to
think of things” while in the water and could not give his undivided
attention to it.
“What’s the matter, Oakwood?” Brownell asked, as Gordon came
out, wiping the water from his eyes.
“My, but they smart!” answered Gordon.
“That’s because you keep them open when you go under—trying
to pick up trails, I suppose.”
“Tails?” gasped Gordon, wringing out his hair.
“No—trails,” said Brownell; “didn’t you know you can follow a
fish’s trail?”
Gordon grinned.
“Sure,” said Atwell, always to the fore when there was any
jollying afoot; “that is, some fishes’; they say it’s almost impossible
to follow a shark’s trail.”
“Stow that, Atwell,” said the Hyenas’ corporal. Then, turning to
Gordon, “Better shut your eyes when you go under; guess you’re
used to surf bathing, hey? Well, that’s the reason. The eyes are used
to salt water—it doesn’t hurt them. Don’t you know the secretions of
the eye are salty? Tears never hurt you, did they?”
This was plausible enough, but seeing that it was a Hyena who
spoke, Gordon was on his guard.
“He never sheds tears,” called Harry, who was sitting astride the
diving board. “Come on up and have a dive.”
Soon they were launching themselves, one after another, from
the height of twenty feet into the lake. Brownell had the stiff dive to
perfection, his straight body turning so as to bring his head down
into the water like an arrow. Atwell did the “drop” to the admiration
of all, falling limp and lifeless, till he almost reached the water, then
straightening out like magic. The clown element was furnished by
Gordon, who came up each time choking and sputtering, but with a
grin always on his face. None of his calculations for reaching the
water panned out, but he managed to get there each time in some
fashion.
“What do you call that one?” one of the boys asked him.
“That’s the celebrated roly-poly tumble, I guess,” volunteered
Brownell. “Here’s a good one.” He sprang sideways, maintaining the
position till he almost reached the water, then swerved about.
“Good,” said Harry. “Ever do this one?”
He stood a moment on the end of the board, sprang high, turned
a complete backward somersault, and sank into the water feet first
and hands high in air.
“That was simply great!” Atwell shouted.
“Try this one,” said Harry, as he clambered off the ladder on to
the plank. Placing his feet on the very end of the board, he allowed
himself to fall to a horizontal position, rolled in the air like a hoop
slightly opened at one side, and pierced the water turning like a
wheel.
“Fine! Magnificent!” said Brownell, as Harry clambered up again
to take his place beside the others who were sitting along the board
with their feet dangling into the butt.
“That fellow over there,” said one of the Hyenas, “makes more
noise than a ferry-boat.” He pointed to a canoe out in the lake which
was occupied by a young man and a small boy. The boy was waving
his handkerchief ecstatically in applause of Harry’s feat, and his
companion was splashing the water with his paddle, apparently for
the same purpose. As they watched, they saw the young man ship
the paddle, rise, step toward the middle of the canoe, lift what
appeared to be a red sweater and wave it. Suddenly he staggered,
and the next thing the boys saw was an overturned canoe, a lot of
paraphernalia, and two figures sprawling desperately in the water.
Harry had risen and without a single word walked across the
knees of the other boys and disappeared, before the canoeists were
really in the lake and before the other boys had moved. He did not
stop to dive or even to jump, he simply walked off the end of the
board. Then Brownell, who was at the outer end of the board, dived,
but by that time Harry had almost reached the small boy, who was
uttering pitiable cries. The young man had managed to get from
deep water and stood chest deep near the farther shore, wringing
his hands and screaming like a girl.
As Harry neared the boy the floundering figure disappeared and
he waited. Presently it rose logily, heavily, the head back. “That’s
right,” said Harry, “keep your head back and don’t move.” The only
response was a scream and a panic-stricken clutch for Harry’s wrist.
He loosened the small hand easily by turning his thumb against its
wrist, but the boy’s two hands went convulsively to his neck, clinging
desperately. He put his arm around the little fellow’s waist and his
other hand, palm upward, under the chin, the tips of his fingers
reaching the boy’s nose. Then he pulled and pushed jerkily. In a
moment the little hands let go their hold. Like lightning, the boy was
turned, almost brutally, as it seemed, and Harry was behind him
again, his arms under the little fellow’s armpits, grasping each hand
as it tried convulsively to clutch him, and making for the shore.
“Is he all right?” called Brownell, who, with one or two others,
was almost across.
“Is he dead? Oh, is he dead?” gasped the young fellow who had
been his companion. Harry paid no attention to the question, nor to
the excited youth, but helped the boy to get rid of the water he had
swallowed and tried to calm him.
“You’re all right,” said he; “and see how nice and clean your
hands and face are. Where do you live?”
“He lives right up the hill in that handsome mansion,”
volunteered the boy’s friend, who lisped and panted out his words
excitedly with chattering teeth. He wore a gorgeous silk outing shirt,
a neckerchief with ends tied loosely and hanging in a way of studied
nonchalance, and a silly little trinket in the way of a compass hung
on a lanyard about his neck. He was the true amateur camper, put
together in a sporting-goods store, and now presented a ridiculous
appearance as he stood shivering and dripping. Even his jack-knife,
which might easily have been carried in his pocket, was suspended
on a little silver hook from his belt.
“His people are extremely well-to-do,” he explained in his rapid,
lisping voice. “I am a guest there myself; I have not the slightest
doubt they will reward you suitably for your bravery.”
Harry surveyed him curiously, but did not answer. “What’s your
name, sport?” he asked the boy, who was gradually getting
possession of his senses.
“His name is Danforth—Penfield Danforth,” spoke up the summer
sportsman; “he’s a delicate boy, father thinks the world of him,
youngest child and all that sort of thing. Poor little codger, he seems
to be quite upset. I—”
“Oh, let up,” Harry broke out.
“Pardon me?”
“He was upset, all right,” laughed Atwell.
“Yes, indeed, in more ways than one,” said the young man,
smiling.
“Well, I guess you’d better take him home,” said Harry. “There’s
your canoe down there under that tree; you can get it later. Take
him up and get him something hot to drink.”
“I was very much impressed with your diving,” said the young
man, “especially that last one—”
“I guess you can get him up the hill, all right?” said Harry.
“Indeed, yes, but I must ask your name. Mr. Danforth will, no
doubt, wish to communicate with you.” He pulled out a little blank
book with a red morocco cover, somewhat draggled from his plunge,
and a pencil pocket along its edge. On the cover was printed in gold
letters, My Summer in the Woods.
Harry eyed it amusedly.
“Your name, please?”
“Buffalo Bill,” said Harry.
“I’m afraid you’re joking. May I ask yours?”
“Daniel Boone,” said Atwell.
He dropped the book on its cord. “Well, we shall be able to find
you anyway; you can’t hide your light under a bushel.”
Harry helped the boy to his feet, and watched the pair make their
way up toward a large house with spacious lawns that crowned a hill
a little way back from the shore. Then the boys swam across the
lake and made for the little grove where they had left the Elephants.
“What the dickens is this?” said one. He was standing in front of
a sign which read:
CAN’T GET AWAY TO DIG BAIT FOR
YOU TO-DAY, MY PATROL WON’T LET ME.
“And look at this one, will you?” said the amazed Atwell.
 “Here’s another,” called Brownell.
They walked about reading the various signs which Frankie had
lost a night’s sleep to manufacture.
“Well, what do you think of that?” said Brownell, as they stood
surveying the “shoe tree.” “The little imps! I wonder how many pairs
they’ve left?”
“Haven’t left any, of course; they’re all odd shoes.”
Meanwhile, Gordon and Harry had discovered the canoe and
begun quietly to put on their clothes.
The others gathered about and looked on enviously. “You fellows
must have a pull with Frankie,” said one. “Going to give us a ride
home?”
“Two of you can come,” answered Harry, “two light-weights. I
don’t think it would be quite safe with Brownell or Atwell.” He was
not going to lessen Frankie’s triumph any more than necessary and
he knew that these two were the chief targets of Frankie’s
vengeance. Two of the Hyenas lost no time in getting in, and while
the others were wandering here and there, ruefully surveying the
Elephants’ handiwork, Gordon and Harry pushed off.
“Hey, Oakwood, take these shoes and things, will you?” came
from the shore. But Harry was almost in midstream and making a
great splash with his paddle, and was discreetly unable to hear.
Two hours later, Frankie sat on a camp chair before the
Elephants’ tent, playing dominoes with Giant George. His faithful
corporal stood at his elbow.
“Here they come,” said Giant George, in an undertone. Frankie
glanced covertly up at a sight which gladdened his heart. The
Hyenas, in their bathing trunks, each one carrying a single shoe,
were straggling to their stronghold. The perspiration dripped from
them, for the heat was intense and their long walk home had been
under a broiling sun. The Elephants had thoughtfully relieved them
even of their hats and caps.
Mr. Wade and Al Wilson stood in the path, talking. The
scoutmaster had a twinkle in his eye as the procession passed, and
even the sober Al could not repress a smile.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.
 “Nothing,” said Mr. Wade, chuckling. “I don’t want to be drawn
into these political broils.”
 CHAPTER XII
SHADES OF THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS
During the boys’ absence, a doctor from Ticonderoga had visited
Walter Lee, and pronounced his injuries comparatively slight,
predicting a quick recovery. A sheriff had come out with him,
secured the best description he could of the robber, and, satisfied
who the fellow was, had gone in search of him. But the bird had
flown, as he informed Mr. Wade on his way back. Harry was not
altogether sorry to hear this, for he had not been able to get the
wretched young man’s mother out of his thoughts.
That night as they sat around the camp-fire the conversation
turned upon the history of the old Fort Ticonderoga and its capture
by the patriot, Ethan Allen, in the early days of the War of
Independence.
“He was a queer old fellow,” said Mr. Wade, who was always
“great” at camp-fire, “but I’ve never been able to make out how he
did that trick. There he was, a backwoods farmer, up in Bennington,
Vermont, which was then a wilderness, with a pack of lumbering
backwoodsmen following him about. Why, half of them didn’t have
firearms, and half the guns they had didn’t work. I understand they
used to use their swords to hoe potatoes. A uniform would have
been a curiosity. They were simply a parcel of big, burly, ignorant
farmers, strong just as an ox is strong, and almost as stupid. Allen
had some wit, though. Well, finally the news works up that way that
the colonists are going to war. Up jumps old Allen, and says he,
‘Come on, let’s go over there and take those two forts. Crown Point
and Ticonderoga.’
“They were loafing around the village store, talking about liberty
and tyranny and all that sort of thing. ‘It’s a go,’ said Seth Warner,
who was as reckless as Allen himself. ‘I’m with you,’ piped up the
sheriff. ‘Me too,’ called another, and they got ready, chose Allen
leader, and came right down through to Shoreham, opposite
Ticonderoga.—Put another log on the fire, and rake her up a bit, will
you, Cattell?
“Well, sir, there was one man who happened along, and he had
some military training, but they had no use for him—said he was
nothing but a soldier, and that was young Benedict Arnold, who
turned traitor before the end of the war. But they let him go along.
Now, history tells us that this pack of rough farmers, I don’t know
just how many, brought up on the shore right opposite Ticonderoga
and Allen made them a great speech. Then they appropriated a few
dories that happened to be moored about, for transports.
“That was long after midnight. They kept crossing and recrossing
till daylight, bringing the men over. You know, the fort, garrisoned by
English regulars, was scarcely two hundred feet from the shore. And
this thing was going on right under Captain Delaplace’s nose till
daylight. Then the whole crowd started up the hill, overpowered the
sentry, marched in, and Allen called upstairs for Delaplace to come
down.
“‘What for?’ says Delaplace. ‘For me,’ says Allen; ‘I want the
surrender of this fort.’ ‘In whose name?’ called down the Captain, his
nightcap bobbing over the stairs. ‘In the name of the great Jehovah
and the Continental Congress,’ shouted Allen. And according to all
accounts, the Captain immediately surrendered the fort. Then, as if
that wasn’t enough, Seth Warner finished the job by taking Crown
Point Fort in the same way. And the Americans held them till General
Burgoyne came down through this country and retook them.
“Now, all things together, I say the whole thing was impossible!”
“It was done,” said Al Wilson, quietly.
“I know, Al,” said Mr. Wade, “but it was impossible just the same
—couldn’t be done.”
There was a great laugh, and Fred Brownell said: “You’re like the
old farmer that went to the menagerie and saw a camel for the first
time. He’d seen dromedaries with one hump before, but when he
came to the real camel with two humps he stood and looked at it for
a few minutes in amazement with his mouth wide open. Then he let
out, ‘Gosh, ther ain’t no such animal!’”
 “Those farmers were full of patriotism,” ventured a boy, when the
laughter had subsided.
“Yes, and patriotism will carry one a long way,” said the
scoutmaster; “but I could never understand that capture—that and
Paul Jones’s victory. We’ll look over the ground when we go down
there; the doctor told me this morning that he’d see if he couldn’t
get us permission to camp a week or so right in the old fort. They
say an old underground passage to the lake is still there.”
Harry had listened carelessly to all this, but now an idea came to
him.
“You mean to camp in the old fort, sir?” he asked.
“That’s the idea, if we can get permission. We’ll pick up here
about the middle of August and spend our last two weeks on historic
ground. You know, they’ve been restoring the old fortress after a
fashion. A patriotic woman became interested in it, and they’ve
made quite a fort of it. You two boys ought to see it. You know, old
Ticonderoga has a great history. It played a part in the bloody
French and Indian War, passed from the French to the English, then
to the Americans when Ethan Allen took it, then back to the English
when Burgoyne took it, then finally back to the Americans again.
And now the Boy Scouts propose to occupy it!
“We’ll explore the old Trout Brook where young Lord Howe was
killed by the Indians. I believe I can pick out the very spot.”
“Then you do admit Ethan Allen took it?” smiled Harry.
“Well, in a way,” laughed the scoutmaster, “according to history,
yes; according to reason and common sense, no.” Then, more
seriously, he added, “There are some things in history, freakish
things, which are theoretically impossible, but which are done. Paul
Jones’s great battle is one. The storming of Stony Point by Mad
Anthony Wayne is another.”
“Washington put him up to that,” protested Al Wilson.
“No, he didn’t, Al; Washington told him to go ahead if he wanted
to, and Wayne, who was as crazy as a March hare, went ahead.”
“And succeeded,” finished Al.
“Yes, but logically he oughtn’t to have succeeded,” laughed Mr.
Wade, “and Ethan Allen ought not to have succeeded. There was
something wrong somewhere. If I were a military man and had a
force of regular soldiers under me in that old fort, do you suppose a
pack of undrilled backwoodsmen could land under my very nose, fire
off a patriotic speech, and take the fort without the loss of a single
life or the shedding of a drop of blood? No sirree!”
They all laughed at his good-natured vehemence, and he
laughed himself, for at such times he was no more than a boy
among them.
“Oh, but it was great, though!” cried Gordon. Harry said nothing;
he was idly whittling a stick, and thinking. He hoped Gordon would
not have the same thought, and blurt it out. He was thinking that if
this thing could be done once without the shedding of a drop of
blood, it could be done again.
“The last two weeks in August,” he said to himself. “I wonder
what Red Deer will think of it.”
It was natural enough after this that the camp-fire “yarns” should
turn on the history of the famous lake, of the old forts at
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the story of the reckless,
adventurous Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys. Thus the
evening passed, the cheerful fire crackling and lighting up the
solemn woods and shining upon the faces of the merry company.
They sat later than usual, in honor of the two guests who were to
bid them farewell in the morning.
Gordon and Harry had the tepee to themselves, and the next
day, early, they took their leave of the hospitable camp. But first
they went in to see Walter Lee, who was to sit up that day. They had
seen but little of Collins, the “First Aid” boy, and now the three sat
about the injured scout’s couch and talked. Harry liked Collins
immensely. When they rose to go and had shaken hands with Walter,
Harry lingered a moment. “I want to ask you a question,” he said.
“You remember when you passed us in the train, you made me the
full salute? How did you know I was patrol leader?”
Walter’s hand went up to a slightly frayed buttonhole in Harry’s
flannel shirt. “I guess that’s where you fasten the lanyard of your
patrol whistle, isn’t it?”
Harry smiled. “You’ll do,” said he.
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