THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 229 



shot of which he does not always feel exactly con 

 fident. But the Douglas, with his denser body, 

 leaps and glides in hidden strength, seemingly as 

 independent of common muscles as a mountain 

 stream. He threads the tasseled branches of the 

 pines, stirring their needles like a rustling breeze ; 

 now shooting across openings in arrowy lines ; now 

 launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to 

 side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops 

 and spirals around the knotty trunks ; getting into 

 what seem to be the most impossible situations 

 without sense of danger; now on his haunches, 

 now on his head; yet ever graceful, and punctuating 

 his most irrepressible outbursts of energy with little 

 dots and dashes of perfect repose. He is, without 

 exception, the wildest animal I ever saw, a fiery, 

 sputtering little bolt of life, luxuriating in quick 

 oxygen and the woods' best juices. One can hardly 

 think of such a creature being dependent, like the 

 rest of us, on climate and food. But, after all, it 

 requires no long acquaintance to learn he is human, 

 for he works for a living. His busiest time is in the 

 Indian summer. Then he gathers burs and hazel- 

 nuts like a plodding farmer, working continuously 

 every day for hours ; saying not a word ; cutting 

 off the ripe cones at the top of his speed, as if em 

 ployed by the job, and examining every branch in 

 regular order, as if careful that not one should es 

 cape him ; then, descending, he stores them away 

 beneath logs and stumps, in anticipation of the 

 pinching hunger days of winter. He seems himself 

 a kind of coniferous fruit, both fruit and flower. 

 The resiny essences of the pines pervade every 



