"Humph," said the woman. "He's run acrost Stevenson's old boar, that runs in them woods up thar, and is mouty savage this time o' year. He'd take a laig offen a youngster quicker'n scat, if he ketched him. He done well to run."
Shorty and the others walked up to the fence and looked over. There was the old razor-back King of the woods still raging around sniffing the air of combat.
"Why, it's only a hog, Pete!" said Shorty.
"Only a hog!" murmured Pete with shamed heart.
"That a hog?" echoed the others. "Well, that's the queerest looking hog I ever saw."
"It's a hog all the same," Shorty assured them. "A genuine razor-back hog. But he's got the secession devil in him like the people, and you want to be careful of him. He ain't fit to eat or I'd kill him. Let's git back to the mill."
CHAPTER XII. THE OPENING OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys around Chattanooga in the busy days of the Spring of 1864.
Never before, in all his countless millions of journeys around the globe, had he seen a human force of such tremendous aggressive power concentrated on such a narrow space. He may have seen larger armies—though not many—but he had never seen 100,000 such veterans as those—originally of as fine raw material as ever gathered under a banner, and trained to war by nearly three years of as arduous schooling as men ever knew, which sifted out the weaklings, the incompetents, the feeblewilled by the boisterous winnowing of bitter war.