My Side of the Mountain

Sam arrives at the library and asks Miss Turner for books on hawks and falcons. She obliges his request and also provides Sam with a much-needed haircut using library scissors. From these books Sam learns that duck hawks nest on cliffs, and so when he returns to the Catskills, Sam stalks out a cliff area where a falcon’s nest is likely to reside. Sam spots some birds flying around, tracks where they go, and then begins a treacherous climb up the cliff side toward the falcon’s nest. He soon finds himself dangerously high up from the ground but succeeds in finding a nest containing three young birds.

To protect her babies, the large mother falcon swoops in and attacks. Over and over again the mother falcon strikes Sam, leaving him battered and torn. While this is happening, Sam works up the courage to take one of the nestlings. He stuffs the baby falcon into his sweater pocket and then jumps and slides down from the cliff’s ledge. Sam decides to name the bird Frightful, “because of the difficulties we had had in getting together” (44). Sam falls asleep beside a nearby stream and later wakes up delighted to find that Frightful remains by his side.

One day Sam senses another human close by and sees a man wearing a forester’s uniform dangerously close to his camp. Sam figures out that the man is a fire warden who was attracted to Sam’s camp due to the smoke from his fires. Sam stays away from his tree house while the fire warden lurks about, realizing that besides the fire he left other traces of things to indicate someone living there. While trying to avoid being caught, Sam spends time quietly feeding himself and Frightful, and he also thinks about how he might make hoods and jesses (straps used in falconry) for Frightful.

Because the fire warden stays at Sam’s camp overnight, Sam continues to spend time away. During this time Sam sneaks around the forest to check on various food traps he’s set up. Sam finds a weasel in one of these traps and promptly gets attacked by the upset weasel. While the weasel is too small to do any real harm to him, Sam is nonetheless surprised by how brazen this weasel is, explaining to the reader, “Wonder filled me as I realized he was absolutely unafraid. No other animal, and I knew quite a few by now, had been so brave in my presence” (51). After attacking Sam, the weasel marches off in a way that Sam compares to royalty; Sam thus decides to call this weasel The Baron.

Still unable to return to his tree house, Sam spends the next day at a marsh on the west side of the mountain. On route to the marsh, Sam notices a female deer, a sight that causes Sam to ponder the value in catching a deer. He imagines that a deer would provide him the ability to make a door for his home, a tether for Frightful, and also a blanket. With the fire warden gone, Sam finally returns to his home and sets his attention on making salt to enhance the taste of his food. Sam spends the next few days making salt, working on his bed, and developing a trap for catching deer.

One morning The Baron Weasel runs up biting and tugging at Sam’s pant leg as he cooks breakfast. Sam believes The Baron is frisking him joyfully or playfully, and so Sam fails to realize that The Baron is actually trying to warn him of something. Sam retaliates by using a stick to poke at The Baron’s den underneath a boulder. While doing this, Sam hears a hunter’s gunshot ring out. After diving back into his tree house, Sam peers out and notices a wounded deer stumbling and soon falling over.

Sam quickly devises a plan in which he drags the dead deer out of view and then hides it under some hemlock boughs and ferns so that the hunter can’t find it. As the hunter walks dangerously close to Sam’s house, Sam hides with Frightful, trying his best to keep his hungry falcon quiet. Eventually the hunter leaves, and Sam runs back to claim his prize. That night Sam enjoys a victorious meal of cooked venison.

Sam scrapes the fur and tans the hide from his first deer to make a door for his tree house. He also uses the hide to make jesses and leashes for Frightful, and then Sam cooks all of the deer meat he can consume and stores the rest. Sam tells us that he used as much of the animal as he could—he uses the bones to make a spearhead to hunt with and a fork to eat with and envisions making a deerskin suit to wear. However, to make his deerskin suit, Sam knows he needs to catch another deer. Sam sets up a trap using salt, which attracts three deer, but The Baron—in an act of mischief—bites Sam’s leg, causing Sam to scream in pain and scare off the deer. Sam tells us about how The Baron is hard to understand but mentions, “The Baron liked me for what I was, and I appreciated that. He was a personable little fellow” (62).

Thanks to The Baron Weasel, Sam enjoys a humorous moment. While Sam continues to carefully hide from summer hikers and vacationers, his new weasel friend attacks a couple of hikers and runs them out of the forest after they unknowingly sit on The Baron’s home boulder. While this interaction takes place, Sam hears the screeching of a deer that fell into one of his traps. Sam spends the rest of June creating a deerskin suit from this deer.

Sam also begins spending a part of each day training Frightful, specifically teaching Frightful to come to him whenever he whistles for her. Sam notices that Frightful will puff up her feathers while sitting on his hand to let Sam know she is content. In August, Sam’s training of Frightful advances to where he throws a lure (meat on a piece of wood covered with hide and feathers) into the air and watches Frightful swoop down and catch it. Frightful quickly becomes skilled at maneuvering through the air to catch the lure and soon after catches her first real bird—a sparrow. Sam gives Frightful the lure after she catches the sparrow, suggesting that if Frightful “gets in the habit of eating what she catches, she will go wild” (68).