Walter had watched the contest perhaps two or three minutes, not yet having made up his mind what he ought to do, when he heard a crashing in the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing, and presently a large iron-gray horse appeared and stopped as his own had done. On his back he bore an object that was almost covered up by a broad-brimmed planter’s hat; and the removal of that hat revealed the flushed face and black head of Phil Perkins. He gazed about him for a moment with a bewildered air, and when his eyes rested on the greyhound and his huge antagonist, he straightened up and prepared for action. His first move was to throw back his head and give utterance to a yell that would have done credit to a Choctaw brave in his war-paint, and his second to spring off his horse and run to the hound’s assistance. He stopped for a moment to push back his sleeves and settle his hat firmly on his head, and before Walter could tell what he was going to do, he caught the hog by his hind legs and with one vigorous twist lifted him from the ground and threw him on his side. Holding him down with one hand, he fumbled in his pockets with the other, and finally drew out a piece of rope, with which he proceeded to confine the hog’s feet.
Now, Perkins was quite as famous for his reckless courage as for his strength, and when he appeared on the scene Walter knew that something was going to happen to that hog; but he little thought his friend would attack him with empty hands. “Perk!” he exclaimed, in great alarm, “get away from there. Don’t you know you are in danger?”
“No, I reckon not,” was Perk’s reply. “If I can’t manage any hog that ever ran wild in Louisiana, when once I get a good hold of him, I will make you a present of my horse.”
“But, Perk, you’ve got hold of a varmint now. That fellow is as big as two common hogs.”
“No difference if he is as big as four. I am man enough for him.”
At this moment, just as Walter was about to dismount to go to Perk’s assistance, Cuff, one of the negroes, hurried up breathless and excited. “Marse Walter!” he exclaimed, “I’se mighty glad I’se found you. Marse ’Gene say come dar right away. We got one cotched, but we needs help mighty bad.”
Thinking that his brother might be in trouble (Walter told himself that that boy could not be easy unless he was in some sort of difficulty), and not doubting that Perk, with the greyhound’s help, would be able to manage his captive, Walter put spurs to his horse and followed Cuff, who led the way to a ravine about a quarter of a mile distant, and there he found the mate to the hog Rex had caught. He was almost as large, quite as furious, and as fully determined to have things all his own way. Eugene had thrown a rope around one of his hind legs and fastened it to the nearest tree. He was assisted by Bab, the four negroes, and six hounds; but the hog seemed in a fair way to whip them all.
These hounds were unlike Rex in more respects than one. Not possessing one quarter of his courage, they were out of place in a rough-and-tumble fight—they could not be depended upon. When Eugene shouted to them they would catch the hog and pull him to the ground, and the negroes would run up to throw their ropes over his head and around his legs; but he fought so desperately that the hounds would let go their hold, and then there would be a scattering that would have been amusing had the struggle been unattended with danger. The hog seemed to care nothing for the dogs. He tried hard to reach his human enemies, and the only thing that protected them from his fury was the rope—a piece of clothes-line—with which he was tied to the tree. But even that would not long avail them, for, to Walter’s intense horror, he saw that some of the strands had parted.
“Eugene! Bab!” he cried, in a voice which he could scarcely raise above a whisper, “that rope is breaking. Run for your lives!”