Be up a tree

Colloquial, early 1800s. In 1838, William Makepeace Thackeray wrote in his Major Gahagan: "I had her in my power - up a tree, as the Americans say,". This informal expression alludes to animals, such as racoons or squirrels, that climb a tree to escape from attackers. The same attackers then surround the tree, the little animals cannot come down and are forced to stay "up the tree"