"They wouldn't be investigated by the saucy little alien, and in a
moment of folly one of them struck at her. The foster mother had been
watching their attitude with jealous eyes and rising wrath, and now her
wrath exploded. With a hoarse bleat she sprang upon the offender and
sent her sprawling down the bank clean into the water. Then she turned
upon the other. But this one, with quick discretion, was already
trotting off hastily, followed by the two awkward youngsters. The
triumphant foster mother turned to the calf and anxiously smelled it
all over to make sure it had not been hurt. And the rash cow in the
water, boiling with wrath, but afraid to risk a second encounter,
picked herself up from among the lily pads and shambled off after her
retreating party.

"As the summer deepened, however, the calf began to feel and act more
like a moose calf--to go silently and even to absorb some of her foster
mother's smell. The other moose began to get used to her, even quite
to tolerate her; and, the wild creatures generally ceased to regard her
as anything but a very unusual kind of moose. Of course, she _thought_
she _was_ a moose. She grew strong, sleek and nimble-footed on her
foster mother's abundant milk, and presently learned to browse on the
tender leaves and twigs of the fresh green shrubbery. She soon,
however, found that the short, sweet grasses of the forest glades were
much more to her taste than any leaves or stringy twigs. But the lily
roots which her foster mother taught her to pull from the muddy lake
bottom, as they wallowed luxuriously side by side in the cool water,
defying flies and heat, suited her admirably. The great black moose
bulls--hornless at this season and fat and amiable as sheep--regarded
her with a reserved curiosity; and the moose calves, the strangeness of
her form and color once worn off, treated her with great respect.