The Spell of the Rockies

by Enos A. Mills

Commonly the cones are stored in the same place year after year. In dining, also, the squirrel uses a log, limb, or stump year after year. Thus bushels of the slowly decaying scales and cobs accumulate in one place. It is not uncommon for these accumulations to cover a square rod to the depth of two feet.

I know of a few instances in which squirrels stowed cones in the edge of a brook beneath the water. One of these places being near my cabin, I kept track of it until the cones were used, which was in the spring. In early autumn the cones were frozen in, and there they remained, unvisited I think, until the break-up of the ice in April. Then a squirrel appeared, to drag them from their cold storage. He carried each by to his regular dining-place. Clasping the cone vertically, base up, in his fore paws, he snipped off the scales and ate the seeds beneath in regular order, turning the cone as he proceeded as though it were an ear of corn and he were eating the kernels.

I have often waited to see a squirrel go for something to eat after a snowstorm. This he did in a matter-of-fact way. Without hunting or hesitation he went hopping across the snow to a spot immediately above his supplies, where he at once pawed his way down into the snow and came up with a cone.

In rambling the woods I have often heard these squirrels barking and "chickareeing" with wild hilarity, apparently from the pure joy of living. Then again they proclaimed my distant approach, or presence, with unnecessary vigor. The energetic protest they make against the trespasser in their woods, is often, if not always, taken by big game as a warning. Generally on hearing this the game will be all alert for some seconds, and occasionally will move off to a more commanding position. Sometimes birds will stop and listen when this tree-top sentinel shouts warnings which have often saved big game from being shot. Most hunters hate this squirrel.

There are brief periods in winter when these squirrels disappear for days at a time. The kind of weather does not appear to be a determining factor in this. During this disappearance they probably take a hibernating sleep; anyway, I have in a few cases seen them so soundly asleep that the fall and fracture of their tree did not awaken them. They sometimes live, temporarily at least, in holes in the ground, but the home is usually in a hollow limb or a cavern in a tree-trunk well toward the top of the tree. Commonly four young ones are brought forth at a birth. Cunning, happy midgets they are when first beginning their acquaintance with the wooded world, and taking sun baths on a high limb of their house tree.

Just how long they live no one appears to know. As pets they have been kept for ten years. A pair lived near my cabin for eight years, then disappeared. Whether they migrated or met a violent death, I never knew. There was another pair in the grove that I kept track of through eleven years. This grove was a wedge-shaped one of about ten acres that stood between two brooks. With but few exceptions, the trees were lodge-pole pine. My acquaintance with the pair began one day in early autumn. Both set up such a wild chatter as I approached the grove that I first thought that something was attacking them. Seated upon a log close to the tree which they occupied, I watched them for three or four hours. They in turn watched me. Failing to dislodge me by vehement denunciation, they quieted down and eyed me with intense curiosity. I sat perfectly still. Evidently they were greatly puzzled and unable to make out what I was and what of all things on earth it could be that I wanted. With beady eyes they stared at me from a number of positions in several trees. Occasionally in the midst of this silent, eager eying one would break out in a half-repressed and drawling bark that was unconsciously, nervously repeated at brief intervals.

The next day they silently allowed me to take a seat. After a brief stare they grew bold with curiosity and descended to the earth for a closer investigation. Pausing for a sharp look, both suddenly exploded with wild chatter and fled with a retchy barking to the tree-tops. In less than a month they took peanuts from my fingers. They were easily terrified by a loud noise or sudden movement. One day an acquaintance came to see me while I was in the grove with the squirrels. By way of heralding his approach, he flung a club which fell with a crash upon a brush pile alongside these most nervous fellows. They fled in terror, and it was two or three days before they would come near me again.

One year the grove cone-crop was a total failure. As a result, Mr. and Mrs. Frémont temporarily abandoned their old home and moved to new quarters on a mountainside about half a mile distant. The day they moved I was by the brook, watching a water-ouzel, when they chanced to cross on a fallen log near-by. In passing, one paused to give a hasty, half-glad, half-frightened, chattery bark of recognition. They hastened across the grassy open beyond as though they felt themselves in danger when out of the woods.

They made a home in an old snag, using places that were, I think, formerly used by woodpeckers. The afternoon of their arrival they commenced to harvest cones, which were abundant on the spruce trees around them. I often wondered if they made a preliminary trip and located a food-supply before moving, or if they simply started forth and stopped at the first favorable place.

The following summer they returned to their old quarters in the grove. The first time that I saw them they were sitting upon a log daintily making a breakfast of fresh mushrooms. They often ate the inner bark of pine twigs, and once I saw one of them eating wild raspberries. I never saw these, or any Frémont squirrel, robbing or trying to rob a bird's nest, and as I have never noticed a bird disturbed by their presence, I believe they are not guilty of this serious offense, as are most kinds of squirrels.