CHAPTER III 
THE ODYSSEY OF OLD BILL 
LD BILL, the biggest bull moose in Massa- 
chusetts (and perhaps you will be surprised 
to hear that there are any moose in Massachusetts 
—most people are), was born in ignominious cap- 
tivity. I say ignominious, because it is igno- 
minious for any wild animal to be a captive, and 
especially for so splendid an animal as the moose, 
that great, deep-chested, powerful-limbed, 
mighty-antlered survival of some giant race of 
deer which inhabited the globe before the dawn 
of any history we know, doubtless before the ad- 
vent of Man at all. And yet, if Old Bill’s par- 
ents hadn’t been led away into captivity in Mas- 
sachusetts there would now be no moose in that 
State, so there you are. 
A moose does not take kindly to confinement. 
You may give him everything in the world he 
likes to eat, from rolled oats to spruce bark, but 
ver 
