Word: musk
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...musk ox is a hard animal to describe-it looks somewhat like a cross between a buffalo and an English sheep dog, has downward-curving horns and a morose expression. It is even harder to know. Though it once roamed as far south as Kentucky, it never learned to duck when hunters began shooting; now all but extinct, the musk ox lives on the fringe of the Arctic, where it munches lichen and other inferior fodder, and apparently spends a great deal of time watching it snow...
Despite its anti-social attitude, however, the musk ox has at least one wildly enthusiastic human admirer. John J. Teal, a husky, Arctic-roving anthropologist, finds it almost as gifted a beast as the shmoo; last week in Manhattan, he announced that he considered musk oxen the hope of New England, and said that he looked forward to the day when hairy herds of them would crop contentedly on the stony hillsides of New Hampshire and Vermont...
...musk ox, first of all, is not an ox. Its true name: ovibos (literally, sheep-ox). Also, it has no musk sacs. It gives tasty milk, produces one of the softest wools known to man, and yields meat (though only if killed) which tastes like a combination of mutton and beef. Teal plans to lead an expedition to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian archipelago next autumn (when this year's crop of musk-ox calves will have reached the size of police dogs), snatch eight of the small fry from their mothers, and bring them back to his Vermont...
Since he has promised the Canadian government that no adult musk ox will be killed in the process, the job of oxnapping promises rich yields in exercise and excitement. At the moment, Teal plans to release a set of dogs to scatter the musk-ox herd. Expert ropers will then try to lasso and tie up the adults, and after that a group of strong young men will run down, hog-tie and crate the eight lucky calves...
...once ashore, the pilgrims' troubles began in touristic earnest. They were put through a rigorous customs and herded into a "bare, stinking stable ground" for lodging. Instantly, a horde of Moslem peddlers descended, offering "rushes and branches of trees to lay on the ground . . . water of roses . . . balsam . . . musk ..." Young Arabs so annoyed the pilgrims with their pilfering that the pilgrims were forced to hire watchmen to keep the intruders...