His big gray cousin
is a looser animal, seemingly light enough to float on the wind; yet
when leaping from limb to limb, or out of one tree-top to another, he
sometimes halts to gather strength, as if making efforts concerning the
upshot of which he does not always feel exactly confident. But the
Douglas, with his denser body, leaps and glides in hidden strength,
seemingly as independent of common muscles as a mountain stream. He
threads the tasseled branches of the pines, stirring their needles like
a rustling breeze; now shooting across openings in arrowy lines; now
launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in sudden
zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the knotty
trunks; getting into what seem to be the most impossible situations
without sense of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet ever
graceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of energy
with little dots and dashes of perfect repose. He is, without exception,
the wildest animal I ever saw,--a fiery, sputtering little bolt of life,
luxuriating in quick oxygen and the woods' best juices. One can hardly
think of such a creature being dependent, like the rest of us, on
climate and food.
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