---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Kartchner, Linda
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 22
number: 10
published: 1919-08
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Kartchner, Linda, "My Theme," *Improvement Era* 22, no. 10 (August 1919): 888.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera22010unse
start_page: 888
end_page: 888
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1919-08)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera22010unse
  publication_year: 1919
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1919, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# My Theme

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How Beaver Paid
                      By George C. Sutherland

      "Well, Beaver, old boy, it sure looks like you and me was in
for a nasty ride tonight.  I don't like the looks of them clouds a
little bit. Wish we had started yesterday."
      Bob MacNeil, the speaker, was a young man of about eight
and twenty years. He was clear-eyed, deep-chested, and wore
the customary chapps, boots and other paraphernalia of the
range rider. Although he spoke in the rough vernacular of the
west, five years before he had received his diploma from the forestry department of the University of Michigan. Five years of
rough range life, during which he had been associating continually with what Frederick Remington would have called "men
with the bark on," had removed a large portion of superfluous
polish from his speech and habits. But they had also developed
those qualities which are recognized as part of the warp and
woof of real manhood.
     Beaver was a handsome specimen of the western horse
crossed with the Morgan, possessing all the sure-footedness and
wild instinct of his range-bred ancestors, combined with the
gentleness and pride of that well-trained servant of man, the
thoroughbred Morgan. His eyes were his most noticeable features, large, brown and lustrous, shining with almost human
intelligence.
     For five years the two had been inseparable companions.
During this time they had come to understand each other with
that indefinable instinct which comes to men and animals with
close association in the big open spaces of the world.
     The place was one of those isolated regions on the Wyoming
National Forest reserve, sixty-five miles from a human habitation.
MacNeil had been spending the last few days in looking over
the ground where trails were to be built the coming year. Being
anxious to cover all the territory possible before snow came, he
had remained at his work until his food supply was exhausted.
Just a few hours before the opening of our story he had started
for Eagle Rock, ninety miles away.
     The sky was dark with heavy, lead-colored clouds, and the
mercury had dropped to within a few degrees of zero. For an
hour the wind had been rising steadily and from his lookout
MacNeil could see the blizzard spreading rapidly over the country below.
    Stroking the neck of his horse, Bob leaped into the saddle
and Beaver started down the trail in an easy lope.