We lay there nestling under mother’s thick fur, shaking with fright. The two fellows down below argued like angry magpies for several minutes, and at last it was decided that the quieter one should do the climbing. I peeped over timidly and saw him throw off his coat, and drew back to make myself as small as possible. Presently I heard a bough creak, and then there followed a scraping and grinding as his heavy hobnailed boots clawed the trunk in an effort to reach the first branch. Once on that, he came up with dreadful rapidity. The boughs of the larch were so close together that even such a great clumsy animal, with his hind-paws all covered up with leather and iron, could climb it as easily as a ladder. We heard him coughing and making queer noises as the thick green dust, which always covers an old larch, got into his throat, and the little sharp dry twigs switched his face. But he kept on steadily, and soon he was only three or four branches below us, and making the whole top of the tree quiver and shake with his clumsy struggles. But as he got higher the branches were thinner, and he stopped, evidently not daring to trust his weight to them, and called out something to his companion. All the answer he got was a jeering laugh, and this probably decided him, for, with a growl, he came on again. The tree really was thin up near our bough, at least for a great giant like this. The trunk itself bent, and the shaking was so tremendous that I began to think that our whole home would be jerked loose from its platform and go tumbling down in ruins with us inside it. Suddenly the fellow’s great rough head was pushed up through the branches just below. His fat cheeks were crimson, and his hair all plastered down on his forehead with perspiration. I stared at him in a sort of horrible fascination. I could not have moved for the life of me, and, as Rusty and Hazel told me afterwards, they felt just the same. But mother kept her head. She was sitting up straight, with her bright black eyes fairly snapping with rage and excitement. The man made a desperate scramble, and up came a large dirty paw and grasped the very branch on which we lived. This was too much for mother. Her fur fairly bristled as she made a sudden dash out of the nest by the entrance nearest to the trunk, and went straight for that grasping fist. Next instant her sharp teeth met deep in his first finger. He gave one yell and let go. All his weight came on his other hand, there was a loud snap, and his large red face disappeared with startling suddenness. For a moment our tree felt just as it does when a strong gust of wind catches and sways it. Our enemy, luckily for himself, had fallen upon a wide-spreading bough not far below, had caught hold of it, and so saved himself from a tumble right down to the bottom.