72 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
if he is shut up in a few acres, he presently dies 
of a disease with a learned name, which in plain 
language is indigestion. In his wild state he 
roams thirty miles to get a meal, browsing here 
and there, and thus keeps in condition. But the 
rich man who caused Old Bill’s potential parents 
to be captured had more than a few acres to con- 
fine them in. He owned 14,000 acres of forest 
and mountain just across the valley of the Housa- 
tonic River from Lenox, up in the Berkshire 
Hills. On a preserve of 14,000 acres you can 
take quite a stroll, even if you have the legs of a 
moose. This same rich man—he was a very rich 
man indeed—wiped out all the farms which had 
once made clearings on his 14,000 acres, leaving 
only one or two houses for his gamekeepers to live 
in, and building a “lodge” for himself, though 
he never hunted the moose, and infrequently even 
fished the brooks. Then he built a great fence 
all around his property. High up on the moun- 
tain at the centre of the reservation was a deep 
swamp of spruce and hemlock and alder, with a 
pond in the midst for which you might hunt hours 
in vain. It was ideal moose country. Into this 
