CHAPTER V.
PERK IN A PREDICAMENT.
There are times when nothing in the world does one so much good as giving vent to half a dozen terrific yells in quick succession, and we have always thought that the occasion of a hog hunt is one of them. When the sport first begins, and you hear the game, which is to you invisible, crashing through the bushes on all sides of you; when you see your eager dogs flying over the ground like “coursers in the race” (we never could understand how any healthy boy can live without at least one good dog); when your horse, hearing the sounds of the chase, pricks up his ears and fairly trembles under the saddle with impatience; when you feel your muscles growing rigid, and your heart swelling within you with excitement;—in circumstances like these, is there anything that lets off the surplus steam so easily and completely as a few good yells given with your whole soul? It is one of the very best things in the world for the health—at least the Club thought so; and if you could have heard the yells they gave on that particular morning, you would have said that they were blessed with extraordinary lungs.
In less time than it takes to tell it, after the hounds gave them notice that the game had been discovered, the young hunters had scattered in all directions, and Walter found himself being carried through the bushes with a rapidity that endangered not only his clothing but his skin, also. His white charger, Tom, had engaged in wild-hog hunting so often that he well understood his business, which was to follow Rex wherever he went, and keep as close to his heels as possible; and Walter had nothing to do but to lie flat along his neck, to avoid being swept out of the saddle by the branches of the trees, shut his eyes and hold on like grim death. This was not the most comfortable position in the world, for the horse, which entered into the sport with as much eagerness as though he possessed the soul to appreciate it, was not at all careful in picking his way. He went like the wind, dodging around this stump, jumping over that, plunging through thickets of briers and cane that seemed almost impassable, and finally, without any word from his rider, suddenly stopped.
Walter looked up and found himself in a clear space about ten feet in diameter, in which the bushes had been beaten down and trampled upon until they presented the appearance of having been cut with a scythe. Near the middle of this clear spot stood the faithful Rex, holding by the ear the largest wild hog it was ever Walter’s fortune to put eyes on. His attention was first attracted by a wound on the greyhound’s shoulder, from which the blood was flowing profusely, and then his eyes wandered to the enormous tusks that had made that wound.
These tusks are two teeth in the lower jaw, one on each side, sometimes represented as growing above the snout, as you see them in the pictures in your geography and natural history. You may have regarded these pictures as exaggerations, but if you could have seen the hog Rex caught that morning you would have had reason to think differently. His tusks were five inches in length. These teeth are not used in chewing the food, but in fighting; and they are dangerous weapons. A wild hog does not bite his enemy, as one might suppose; but strikes and wounds him with his tusks; and wherever they touch they cut like a knife.
A wild hog is the wildest thing that ever lived, not even excepting a deer or turkey. He inhabits the darkest nooks in the woods, and, like some other wild animals, feeds at night and sleeps in the day time. He has one peculiarity: no matter how tight a place he gets into or how badly he is hurt, he never squeals. More than that, a dog which has often hunted wild hogs seems to fall into their habits, for during the hunt he seldom growls or barks.
Walter was highly enraged when he found that Rex was wounded, and told himself that if he had had his double-barrel in his hands he would have put an end to that hog’s existence then and there. But he was entirely unarmed, and not possessing the courage to attack such a monster with empty hands, he sat quietly in his saddle and watched the contest. He had seen Rex in many a battle before that, and he saw him in some desperate scrapes afterward, but he never knew him to fight with greater determination than he exhibited that morning. Have you ever seen an ant carrying off a grain of corn? If you have, you will gain some idea of the great odds Rex had to contend with when we tell you that there was as much difference in size between him and the hog, as between the ant and the kernel of corn. He looked altogether too small to engage so large an enemy; but his wound had enraged him, and when he once got his blood up, he feared nothing.
The hog was no coward, either. He had evidently made up his mind to win the battle, and his movements were much more rapid than you would suppose so large a mountain of flesh capable of. He struck at Rex repeatedly, and tried hard to bring him within reach of those terrible tusks, one fair blow from which would have ended the battle in an instant and left Walter to sing:
“No dog to love, none to caress.”
But Rex understood all that quite as well as his master did. He sustained his high reputation even in that emergency, holding fast to the hog’s ear, keeping out of reach of the deadly teeth, and now and then giving his antagonist a shake that brought him to his knees. It was genuine science against Kentucky science—main strength and awkwardness. Neither of the combatants uttered a sound; both fought in silence and with the energy of desperation.