MOOSE-HUNTING IN THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 36 



a child ill distress. It was not coarse, like the bleat of a 

 calf, but seemed to have a softer and more pathetic tone, 

 suggestive of humanity. Its struggles were vain in the 

 arms of its captor. It was being subdued rapidly, when a 

 rush was heard, and the mother Moose appeared with a 

 fury that made us sick at heart. The mad beast was sur- 

 prised, however, at the manner of foe she encountered, and 

 she stopx)ed in trembling doubt before rushing to battle in 

 defense of her pleading offsi)ring. In self-defense, I shot 

 the old Moose dead in her tracks, and felt guilty as of a 

 crime a moment later. 



We retained the calf captive. Our pet was brown in 

 color, with a tinge of rust along the back and down half- 

 way on the sides. The i)arts of the body less exposed to the 

 weather were nearly black, and reflected a silky glossiness. 

 The color, as a whole, was not pleasing. Like all the other 

 Moose I have seen, it had the ding^^ look of a partly faded 

 coat. It was as large as a month-old calf. Its head was large, 

 and had the appearance of being too heavy for its long neck; 

 and its nose had a well-developed, ungainly lump. Its 

 head and ears were decidedly mulish in appearance. Its 

 legs, especially the hind legs, were long, and did duty with 

 a drag of tardiness; but the hind legs seemed to furnish 

 nearly all the motive power. It would stand sometimes on 

 its hind legs, like a Kangaroo, and look about, and bleat in 

 that pitiful, half-human tone, which often caused us to 

 regret that we had not left it with its mother. 



It was restless, and seemed to be untamable. We 

 detained it by building a pen so designed as to guard 

 against injury to its tender body, but it literally "beat 

 against the bars" every moment of its caj^tivity. We 

 hastened out of the mountains with it to a ranch, and i)ro- 

 cured milk for it. There we arranged a good stable, and 

 gave it tender care; but it kept up its fretting ways. It 

 would walk from one end of its stall to the other continu- 

 ally, never resting and never sleeping, to our knowledge. 

 At each end of the inclosure it would rise up on its hind 

 legs and bleat, and then turn about to repeat the same dis- 



