Baden-Powell tells an amusing story of an impromptu boar hunt. "At a grand field-day at Delhi, in the presence of all the foreign delegates, in 1885, a boar suddenly appeared upon the scene and charged a Horse Artillery gun, effectually stopping it in its advance at a gallop by throwing down two of the horses. The headquarters staff and the foreign officers were spectators of this deed, and hastened to sustain the credit of the Army by seizing lances from their orderlies and dashing off in pursuit of the boar, who was now cantering off to find more batteries on which to work his sweet will. The staff, however, were too quick for him, and, after a good run and fight, he fell a victim to their attentions, amidst a chorus of vivas, sacrés, and houplas."
The pig is a born fighter. From his early infancy he learns the use of butting, and perceives, at an age when civilised piggies are just beginning to root up one's orchard, that his growing tusks are meant for other uses than those of mere captivation. Little "squeakers" have been watched by B.-P. having a regular set-to together, while the older members of their family sat in a pugilistic ring grinning encouragement. Once Baden-Powell managed to secure a baby pig, and kept him in his compound, just as he had kept rabbits and guinea-pigs in England. To watch this squeaker practising "jinking" from a tree ("jinking" is "pig-sticking" for jibbing), and charging ferociously at an old stump, was one of our hero's pet amusements for many weeks.
Although dogs are not regularly used in hunting the wild boar they are sometimes employed for scouting in a particularly thick jungle, and Baden-Powell frequently went to work of this kind with a half-bred fox-terrier. He regards as one of the joys of true sport the bending of animals' wills to his own, and while in this respect the horse ranks highest in his estimation, he is always glad to work with a keen dog. Beetle, the fox-terrier, was just such a dog as Baden-Powell would like; he was quick, full of intelligence, a complete stranger to fear, and moreover he had an individuality of his own. When B.-P. started off for the haunt of his quarry, Beetle would sit with an air of great dignity in the front of the saddle, keeping a sharp look-out for signs of pig. At a likely spot the little dog would jump nimbly from the saddle and plunge boldly into the jungle. Then a sharp yap would reach the ears of B.-P., then a smothered growl, a crashing of twigs and branches, and at last, with a floundering dash, out came the boar, struggling into his stride with Beetle at his heels. "In the run which followed," says Baden-Powell, "the little dog used to tail along after the hunt, and, straining every sense of sight and hearing as well as of smell to keep to the line, always managed to be in at the death, in time to hang on to the ear of a charging boar, or to apply himself to the back end of one who preferred sulking in a bush." And in the end it was a change of climate, at Natal, that killed the gallant-hearted Beetle. He died with a tattered ear, a drooping eyelid, an enlarged foot, and twelve scars on his game little body—all honourable mementos of innumerable fights with the dreaded boar.
As showing Baden-Powell's prowess as a hunter we may mention some of the stuffed animals in the hall of his mother's house, all of which have fallen to our hero: Black Bucks, Ravine Deer, Gnu, Inyala, Eland, Jackal, Black Bear, Hippopotamus (a huge skull), Lion, Tiger, and Hog Deer.
CHAPTER VII[ToC]
SCOUT
All hardy exercise is good for a soldier, but in pig-sticking Baden-Powell found a sport which, in addition to its effect upon the nerves and sinews, gives a man what is called a "stalker's eye," and that, says B.-P., is par excellence the soldier's eye. It was this that made B.-P. an enthusiastic hunter of the wild boar. "Without doubt," he exclaims, "the constant and varied exercise of the inductive reasoning powers called into play in the pursuit must exert a beneficial effect on the mind, and the actual pleasure of riding and killing a boar is doubly enhanced by the knowledge that he has been found by the fair and sporting exercise of one's own bump of 'woodcraft.' The sharpness of intellect which we are wont to associate with the detective is nothing more than the result of training that inductive reasoning, which is almost innate in the savage. To the child of the jungle the ground with its signs is at once his book, his map, and his newspaper. Remember the volume of meaning contained in the single print of Friday's foot on Crusoe's beach." And so he advises officers in India to go with a native tracker to the jungle and watch him and learn from him "the almost boundless art of deducing and piecing together correctly information to be gathered from the various signs found." The importance of tracking, and the art of it, is shown in an interesting story which B.-P. tells, a story which demonstrates the close relationship of hunter and scout. A sportsman in India was out tiger-shooting early one morning, with two professional trackers walking in front of his elephant, and the usual company of beaters behind. As they went along, the fresh pugs of a tiger were seen on the ground, but the professional trackers passed on without so much as a sign of having noticed the spoor. In a minute the beaters were up with the professionals, asking, with Asiatic irony, if they had eyes in their professional heads. To which one of the trackers merely replied, "Idiots! at what time do rats run about?" And then the humbled coolies went back to look at the spoor again, and there they saw, after a close scrutiny, the delicate tracing of a little field-rat's feet over the mighty pugs of Stripes. This rat only comes out of its hole early in the night, and retires long before the Eastern day begins, so that several hours had elapsed since the tiger journeyed that way, and the professional was a better man than the amateur.