“A quick grab at those feet, a sudden get-away, and I have my breakfast,” he thought as he moved cautiously forward. “That fellow doesn’t weigh over ten pounds dressed, but that’s enough food for two days and by that time I’ll be back to camp.” Oh, vain hope!
Right hand out, right foot forward; left hand, left foot. So he moved ahead. Now half the distance was covered and still the little wild pigs slept. Now he was within arm’s length of his prey. Then, rising to his knees, he shot out a hand. There came a wild, piercing squeal, then all was commotion.
Quicker than he could think, the old peccary was after him.
“Insignificant little brute,” he thought. “I could brain you with a single blow of a club.”
He had no club, had not thought of that.
A convenient tree offered protection. Clinging to his squealing prey, he leaped to the first branch.
“Go away in a moment,” he told himself as with his clasp-knife he silenced the squeals of the young porker.
To his immense surprise, as he looked down he saw that the ground was literally alive with angry, grunting peccary pigs.
“Where’d they all come from?” he asked an hour later, as for the twentieth time he adjusted his sore muscles to their cramped position.
This question no one could answer. The angry horde had apparently declared the tree to be in a state of siege. And, though they were small, they were terrible to look at. There were gnarled old fathers of that herd whose ugly yellow tusks, curled twice round, stood out at the end like spears.