I was born on a warm spring day. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. I had to learn how to walk almost instantly after I was born. A couple of days after I was born my mother took me to a meadow where for the first time I ate solid food which was grass. For the first few weeks of my life I depended upon my mother for everything. She showed me which plants were good to eat and which animals were friendly and which animals were not.

One fall day my mother took me to a river and we waited and listened. When we heard nothing my mother jumped into the water. I was scared to swim, but I didn't want to stay there alone, so I jumped in after her. When we were about half-way across the river I heard a noise. It was getting closer and closer. A little while later I saw something coming towards us in the water. When we go to the other side of the river and we took off into the trees and ran towards the mountain. I was very tired from all the running and swimming we had done that day. We rested near a little opening on the mountainside. That day was the first day that I saw a moose other than my mother, and he was a big bull moose with really big antlers. My mother told me that he was my father. There were five other cows with us.

My first winter was very long and cold. There was hardly anything to eat and it was hard to get around in the deep snow. I was glad when it was finally over. The next spring we made our way back down the mountain to the river that we'd crossed in the fall. The ice was flowing and the geese were coming back. We got a drink of water as soon as there was a little clearing in the river, then headed back up the mountain.

In the fall my mother was shot. We were feeding in a meadow and I heard a loud noise and my mother fell. I stayed by her for a little while, but she didn't move. I didn't know where I was going. The next winter was long and cold again. There was very little to eat and the snow was as deep as the year before. For the first time I didn't have my mother to tell me what to do. The next summer I started to grow my first big set of antlers. In a couple of months they were fully grown.

A year has passed since my mother was shot. I had to be very careful because there was a lot of boats in the sloughs and on the rivers. One day when I was getting a drink of water from the slough I heard a loud noise and a splash of water not very far in front of me. I looked around and at first didn't know what to do. But when I saw a boat coming towards me, I ran into the trees. I could hear men running after me inside the trees. I ran towards a little clearing, and when I got there I could still hear the men coming after me. So I ran towards the other side of the clearing where I stopped to look back. Just when I got to the trees the men reached the clearing. I stopped and turned and ran again. I don't know how long I ran, but I was really tired. When I stopped to rest I could hear boats all around me in the slough. I was really thirsty, but I was scared to go down to the slough to get a drink of water. So I looked around inside the trees for a little pond to drink from. I found what I was looking for and I rested there for a while. But the pond was too small and I was getting really thirsty again. I didn't want to go down to the slough, but I couldn't help it. When I got there and started drinking I suddenly heard a loud noise. When I looked up I saw another boat coming towards me. I started to run towards a meadow and didn't stop until I reached it. Then I heard another loud shot and felt a bad sting close to my left shoulder. I fell down on one knee and couldn't think of anything but the pain I was in. I got up, though, and tried to run away, but I heard another shot and felt a terrible pain in my neck. I fell down again, but this time I couldn't move. I saw the men coming towards me, and I could hear them talking. Then the last thing I heard was a gun shot, and it was all over.