Sam was meditating. Tipped back in a chair made of river alder and willow, he leaned against the log wall of his cabin. His shoeless feet were swathed in wrinkled socks of the kind that come to a point at the toe where a tuft of thread keeps the cotton yarn from unraveling. Sam’s blue shirt was faded from too many washings in the creek below the cabin. The only unfaded portions of the shirt were hidden by his wide, yellow suspenders. Sam’s tired, blue eyes stared out over his “stompin’ ground,” which was a high mesa overlooking the blue depths of Shadow Canyon. Across the mesa meandered a chain of castle rocks. This outcropping was red and yellow in color. It stood on edge, silent evidence of the upheaval which had formed the Crazy Kill Mountains millions of years before. Sam’s toothless gums clamped down on the stem of his cold pipe. Keeping the pipe right side up was the heaviest work Sam planned for that morning. Out in a lush meadow which crowded like a green carpet around the castle rocks there was plenty of healthy contrast to the lazy inactivity that filled Sam. He let his eyes wander fondly over the scene. Up near the base of the biggest castle five fat yellowbelly whistlers romped about among the rocks. A sixth sat like a round ball of silver fur, perched on the top of a high rock. The old rockchuck on guard was as relaxed and lazy as Sam, except for his beady eyes. Those eyes saw everything that moved, as far away as the spruce woods which bordered the upper side of the mesa. Sam studied the yellowbelly whistlers with a spark of interest in his faded eyes. They were yellowish animals with long, silvery hairs covering their brown coats, giving them a shining appearance when they romped in the sun. They had dark-brown heads and tails, and a whitish band across their faces. They rolled through the grass and over the rocks, front end up, hind end up, rocking along on their stubby legs. Many smaller fellows courted the protection of the yellowbellies, making good use of the sharp eyes of the sentinel whistler perched high on his lookout. A dozen rockchips dodged about in the grass while as many more sat on little rocks and stared away toward the snow-capped peaks of the Crazy Kill Range. These potbellied little brownies of the high country were well content with the crumbs from the great one’s table. The keen eyes and the ready blast of warning from the high rock removed their chief worries. The sentinel whistler was sure to announce the arrival of the swift-hawk, the laughing coyote, the martens, or the bobcat. There were many other enemies of the air and the forest and the whistler watched for and spotted all of them.