156 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



laws might not have been observed, but whatever 

 might have happened, the fact remains that my 

 life was saved because 



I LOOKED MORE LIKE A MOOSE THAN A DEER. 



Up to the time of that adventure I had 

 been disposed to laugh at a moose, his long un- 

 gainly nose, short neck, and badly drawn body, 

 have always appeared absurd to me, in fact, the 

 moose seemed to me as if the Creator had made 

 him while in a humorous mood, but now it is dif- 

 ferent. I look upon the moose as an exceedingly 

 dignified and noble beast; neither do I hesitate to 

 declare him boldly to be the king of American big 

 game animals. Pshaw ! Alongside of a moose a 

 deer is but a weak effeminate creature ! 



When I was last in the Rocky Mountains a big 

 mountain lion drove a beautiful little fawn down 

 to the railway station at Belton, on the Great 

 Northern Railroad, and the kind-hearted station 

 master fed the little spotted fawn from a bottle 

 just as human "bottle babies" are fed. 



Deer make beautiful pets, but the bucks are very 

 dangerous at certain times of the year. This, how- 

 ever, depends upon the size of the buck. One full- 

 grown deer that I once owned had legs smaller 

 than the pen with which I am writing, and its 

 body was not as large as a big jack-rabbit. Of 

 course, this toy deer was not dangerous any time 

 of the year. But the pigmy musk deer of Java are 

 far from numerous and seldom seen in this coun- 



