It was the best way of approaching success, as Jack saw, and whispering that he would do as his companion suggested, he sat there watching Ned’s movements as he crept away up the slope and disappeared. Then fitting an arrow to the bowstring, after laying his spear ready by his side, he rested the bow across his knees, and sat on his mossy stone, watching the movements of the little herd, and expecting, moment by moment, to see one of the watchful elders take alarm, give warning, and the whole party dash back up the gully.
But they kept rooting and hunting about, evidently for some kind of fruit which fell from the trees, and Jack felt as if he were far back in the past, a hunter on that beautiful, wild mountain slope, dependent upon his bow for his existence. The sun poured down its hot rays, making the leaves glisten like metal, and the air was so clear that the pigs’ eyes and every movement were as plain as if close at hand.
“Seems treacherous lying in wait like this,” he thought. “Poor wretches! they all look as playful and contented as can be.”
But he knew that he and Ned must eat if they were ever to escape from that mountain, and the sentiment of pity died out as the time went on.
The pigs were slow in coming down, for under the trees at the other side of the gully the fruit they sought seemed to be plentiful, and he could see the younger ones hunting one another as a lucky find was made, this resulting in a good deal of squealing, while above it the deep grunts of the elders were plainly heard.
But there was no sight of Ned, and half-an-hour must have passed, with the pigs still out of reach for a good shot.
“If they do come this way,” thought the lad, “I can’t study about picking one; I must shoot into the thickest part and chance it. But where is Ned? Why don’t he show?”
At last there was the appearance far up of a large pig coming down toward the herd, but the next moment, as it glided among the leaves, Jack saw that it was a pig with clothes on, and that it carried a bow and arrow.
The time had come for a shot, and softly and slowly the lad edged himself back till he could drop on his knees behind the stone, rest the bow upon it horizontally, and wait for the critical moment to draw and launch his arrow.
He could watch Ned the while as well as the herd, and by slow degrees he saw his companion creep from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, slowly diminishing the distance, while, having probably cleared off the fallen fruit, the herd broke into a trot as if to pass within twenty yards of where he waited.