“When running from danger he carries his head low and makes long leaps. When not frightened he trots and holds his head high and proudly. He prefers flat open country, and there is no more beautiful sight on all the great plains of the West than a band of Fleetfoot and his friends. He is social and likes the company of his own kind. “The time was when these beautiful creatures were almost as numerous as the Bison, but like the latter they have been killed until now there is real danger that unless man protects them better than he is doing there will come a day when the last Antelope will be killed, and one of the most beautiful and interesting of all my children will be but a memory.” There was a note of great sadness in Old Mother Nature's voice. For a few minutes no one spoke. All were thinking of the terrible thing that had happened at the hands of man to the great hosts of two of the finest animals in all this great land, the Bison and Antelope, and there was bitterness in the heart of each one, for there was not one there who did not himself have cause to fear man. Old Mother Nature was the first to break the silence. “Now,” said she, “I will tell you of the oddest member of the Cattle and Sheep family. It is Longcoat the Musk Ox, and he appears to belong wholly neither to the Cattle nor the Sheep branch of the family, but to both. He connects the two branches in appearance, reminding one somewhat of a small Bison and at the same time having things about him very like a Sheep. “Longcoat the Musk Ox lives in the Farthest North, the land of snow and ice. He has been found very near the Arctic Ocean, and how he finds enough to eat in the long winter is a mystery to those who know that snow-covered land. He is a heavily built, round-bodied animal with short, stout legs, shoulders so high that they form a hump, a low-hung head and sheeplike face, heavy horns which are flat and broad at the base and meet at the center of the forehead, sweeping down on each side of the head and then turning up in sharp points. His tail is so short that it is hidden in the long hair which covers him. “This hair is so long that it hangs down on each side so that often it touches the snow and hides his legs nearly down to his feet. In color it is very dark-brown, almost black, and on his sides is straight. But on his shoulders it is curly. In the middle of the back is a patch of shorter dull-gray hair. “Underneath this coat of long hair is another coat of woolly, fine light-brown hair, so close that neither cold nor rain can get through it. It is this warm coat that makes it possible for him to live in that terribly cold region. He is about twice as heavy as a big Deer. At times he gives off a musky odor, and it is from this that he gets his name of Musk Ox.