34 THE MOOSE 



that it would take him nine seasons to touch per- 

 fection, and two or three before a palmated condition 

 worth noticing elaborated itself from his yearling 

 spike. 



Never mind ! Some day he would be crowned 

 like the superiors of his kind. Until then he must 

 wait patiently as a hornless moose can. 



The cow winced. It was her one weak spot, and 

 the calf, inadvertently had touched on it. She 

 never forgot — no moose cow ever forgets — that the 

 females of her near relatives, the caribou, are as well 

 antlered as the males. And since no animal any- 

 where can be really happy without a grievance, she 

 found hers here, dwelling with melancholy pleasure 

 on the unfair division of things. 



On the tundras and lower mountain slopes roamed 

 the crowned ones, and down in the sheltered valleys, 

 swamps, and forested areas, the cows of another 

 tribe cried in vain for the regal headgear. 



The cow had not forgotten her old mother's 

 theory, which held that female caribou must be 

 antlered or die at once, since an inhospitable region, 

 in which there are wolves to be fought incessantly 

 and snow to shovel, demands horns for all ; but 

 jealousy made her regardless. She wept for her 



