d what he had _seen_,
I knew that he had kept a fairly accurate diary of his own personal
experience. This I knew the saw would reveal, and this I had
determined to see.

Nature matures a million conifer seeds for each one she chooses for
growth, so we can only speculate as to the selection of the seed from
which sprung this storied pine. It may be that the cone in which it
matured was crushed into the earth by the hoof of a passing deer. It
may have been hidden by a jay; or, as is more likely, it may have
grown from one of the uneaten cones which a Douglas squirrel had
buried for winter food. Douglas squirrels are the principal nurserymen
for all the Western pineries. Each autumn they harvest a heavy
percentage of the cone crop and bury it for winter. The seeds in the
uneaten cones germinate, and each year countless thousands of conifers
grow from the seeds planted by these squirrels. It may be that the
seed from which Old Pine burst had been planted by an ancient ancestor
of the protesting Douglas who was in possession, or this seed may have
been in a cone which simply bounded or blew into a hole, where the
seed found sufficient mould and moisture to give it a start in life.

* * * * *

Two loggers swung their axes. At the first blow a Douglas squirrel
came out of a hole at the base of a dead limb near the top of the tree
and made an aggressive claim of ownership, setting up a vociferous
protest against the cutting. As his voice was unheeded, he came
scolding down the tree, jumped off one of the lower limbs, and took
refuge in a young pine that stood near by. From time to time he came
out on the top of the limb nearest to us, and, with a wry face, fierce
whiskers, and violent gestures, directed a torrent of abuse at the
axemen who were delivering death-blows to Old Pine.

The old pine's enormous weight caused him to fall heavily, and he came
to earth with tremendous force and struck on an elbow of one of his
stocky arms. The force of the fall not only broke the trunk in two,
but badly shattered it. The damage to the log was so general that the
sawmill-man said it would not pay to saw it into lumber and that it
could rot on the spot.

I had come a long distance for the express purpose of deciphering Old
Pine's diary as the scroll of his life should be laid open in the
sawmill. The abandonment of the shattered form compelled the adoption
of another way of getting at his story. Receiv