A couple of shots which laid low one of their party seemed, however, to scare them, and they dashed on once more, and hardly had they gone twenty yards before there was a loud thud and Jack Penny fell from the branch, where he had been clinging, flat upon his back.
“Oh my!” he cried, as he sat up and looked about. “I couldn’t hold on any longer. It’s lucky they are gone.”
“Look out!” I cried, swinging myself down, dropping my gun, and pulling my hatchet from my belt; but Jack would have fared badly if he had depended on me.
For the little boar that had been wounded by an arrow, had dropped, apparently dying, when its companions swept by the second time, but it had fierce life enough left in it to take advantage of Jack Penny’s helpless condition, and leaping up it charged at him, its tusks glistening, and the foam tossed from its snapping jaws falling upon its sides.
A bullet would have given the fierce beast its quietus, but the doctor would not fire for fear of hitting Jack, and he sat with his gun raised waiting for an opportunity.
Jack saw his danger and rolled himself over, trying vainly the while to drag his axe from his belt. Then just as the furious little boar was dashing at him, I saw something black dart down from above; there was a rush, a squeal, and the boar was literally pinned to the earth, while Jimmy stood grinning and staring from the doctor to me and back, as if asking to be complimented upon his feat. For it really was a feat. He had jumped fully ten feet to the ground spear in hand, and literally thrown himself upon the little boar.
“A magnificent jump, Jimmy,” I cried.
“Jimmy de boy to jump,” he said, complacently. “Pig, pig kill Mass Jack Penny, Jimmy no spear um.”
“Yes, I ’spect I should have ketched it pretty warmly,” said Jack, gathering himself up. “Oh, I say, I did come down such a bump, Joe Carstairs. It seemed to shake my back joints all to pieces.”
“Jimmy spear um lil pig, pig,” said the black.