trust the branches. You would have laughed (from a safe distance), if
you had seen the dwarves sitting up in the trees with their beards
dangling down, like old gentlemen gone cracked and playing at being
boys. Fili and Kili were at the top of a tall larch like an enormous
Christmas tree. Dori, Nori, On, Oin, and Gloin were more comfortable
in a huge pine with regular branches sticking out at intervals like
the spokes of a wheel. Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Thorin were in
another. Dwalin and Balin had swarmed up a tall slender fir with few
branches and were trying to find a
     Gandalf, who was a good deal taller than the others, had found a tree
into which they could not climb, a large pine standing at the very
edge of the glade. He was quite hidden in its boughs, but you could
see his eyes gleaming in the moon as he peeped out.
     And Bilbo? He could not get into any tree, and was scuttling about
from trunk to trunk, like a rabbit that
     “You’ve left the burglar behind again}” said Nori to Dori looking
     “I can’t be always carrying burglars on my back,” said Dori, “down
tunnels and up trees! What do you think I am? A porter?” “He’ll be
eaten if we don’t ‘do something,” said Thorin, for there were howls
all around them now, getting nearer and nearer. “Dori!” he called, for