I could hear the scratching of the red squirrel descending to investigate, but I didn’t look up until it let go with long indignant chatter at finding its territory invaded. I plunked out the pebble and began relacing my boot. Cautiously the squirrel came down, pausing frequently to scold, its lower jaw quivering with rage and exposing yellow rodent teeth. Neighboring squirrels joined in and soon the trees danced with flicking tails. Down the squirrel came, almost to the ground, then raced back up the tree, stopping at each lateral branch to deliver a vocal broadside. Finding no danger to themselves, the other squirrels soon quit the uproar and went about their morning business. I was beginning to suspect that I was committing some graver offense than the mere exercise of squatters’ rights—perhaps I threatened its cache of fir cones. Then into the corner of my vision shot another form, streaking soundless as a shadow; the squirrel also saw it—but too late. With a thin terrified squeak, the rodent started to go higher; but the pine marten was above it. The squirrel quickly reversed itself, sending bits of bark showering down. As the squirrel leaped from the tree in desperation, the marten overtook it in mid-air; they came down together. Clamping the limp creature firmly in its jaws, the marten strode up the incline of a fallen spruce. Before it hopped off onto a shelf of higher ground to disappear, it looked briefly back at me. I fancied I could read, fixed in its eyes, a certain recognition of my having distracted its prey. A breeze made me shiver, snapping me back from that swift vision of luxuriant fur, that blinding grace which flashed its orange throat-patch through the trees, and I realized I was sweating. For a moment I had been that squirrel, eyes wide with terror, seeing fate bear down, and powerless before the natural order of things. The incident got the other squirrels singing again; but the confidence was gone, and soon it was quiet. What dreams do squirrels dream, I wondered, looking around. I saw that place more clearly then, having been caught between a marten and its prey. I saw each spruce: its age, its condition, the onslaughts it had borne; the beargrass coming up in an opening; and down the trail a meadow that was yellow, white, and red with sulphur plant, mariposa, and Indian paintbrush. Bees, flies, spiders, and butterflies worked that little garden tucked among the crowding trees. Countless forms of life beneath the soil and bark, in tunnel, crevice, hole, and pocket, working unseen to sustain their lives, and somehow, when all were added up, maintaining the forest as well. A flicker called, its loud _Klee-yer_ breaking the forest hush. Birds, mammals, plants, insects—all hide together here, their lives so skillfully embroidered that no loose thread exists that my mind might grasp to unravel and understand the work.