"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. Though she was so much smaller and lighter than they, her quickness on her feet and her extremely handy way of butting made her easily master of them all. Even the supercilious young cow who had been so disagreeable to her at first grew indifferently friendly, and all was peace around the secluded little lake. "Late one afternoon, however, when the shadows were getting long and black across the forest glades, the peace was momentarily broken. The calf was pasturing in one of the glades, while her foster mother was wallowing and splashing down among the lilies. A bear creeping up through the thickets so noiselessly that not even a sharp-eyed chick-a-dee or a vigilant red squirrel took alarm, peered out between the branches and saw the calf. "As luck would have it, it was the same old bear! He had recovered from his wound, but naturally he had not forgotten the terrible horns of the little fawn-colored Jersey cow. When he saw the fawn-colored calf he flew into a rage, and hurled himself forth at her to avenge in one stroke the bitter and humiliating memory.