How does the fact that the setting takes place in nature contribute to the meaning of the story?

The story includes many images and references to nature, including the storm and the feud over the forest itself. Nature appears as a character in the story, as both an object of the two men’s desires and a subject that interferes in their affairs. The nature continually overpowers the humans in the story, illustrating Saki’s preference for nature over man.

If one views the true interlopers of the story as the two men bandying about the forest at night, then nature ultimately triumphs by trapping and killing the two. The generational feud over the forest, which arguably can never truly be owned, ends when “[n]ature’s own violence overwhelm[s] them both” and makes prey of the predators (392).