hed, these two, the monarch of the
Western plains, and the monarch of the Northeastern forests. Both had
something of the monstrous, the uncouth, about them, as if they belonged
not to this modern day, but to some prehistoric epoch when Earth moulded
her children on more lavish and less graceful lines. The moose was like
the buffalo in having his hind-quarters relatively slight and low, and
his back sloping upwards to a hump over the immensely developed
fore-shoulders. But he had much less length of body, and much less bulk,
though perhaps eight or ten inches more of height at the tip of the
shoulder. His hair was short, and darker than that of his shaggy rival,
being almost black except on legs and belly. Instead of carrying his
head low, like the buffalo, for feeding on the level prairies, he bore
it high, being in the main a tree-feeder. But the greatest difference
between the two champions was in their heads and horns. The antlers of
the moose formed a huge, fantastic, flatly palmated or leaflike
structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading
more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short,
polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a
two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife. And his head, instead of being
short, broad, ponderous, and shaggy, like Last Bull's, was long,
close-haired, and massively horse-faced, with a projecting upper lip
heavy and grim.

Had there been no impregnable steel barrier between them, it is hard to
say which would have triumphed in the end, the ponderous weight and fury
of Last Bull, or the ripping prongs and swift wrath of the moose. The
buffalo charged down the knoll at a thundering gallop; but just before
reaching the fence he checked himself violently. More than once or twice
before had those elastic but impenetrable meshes given him his lesson,
hurling him back with humiliating harshness when he dashed his bulk
against them. He had too lively a memory of past discomfitures to risk a
fresh one now in the face of this insolent foe. His matted front came
against the wire with a force so cunningly moderated that he was not
thrown back by the recoil. And the keen points of his horns went through
the meshes with a vehemence which might indeed have done its work
effectively had they come in contact with the adversary. As it was,
however, they but prodded empty air.

The moose, meanwhile, had been in doubt whether to attack with h