Colonel, officers, and men poured out of the guard-room, almost without a word, and advanced at a double through the woods. The mystery was going to be solved at last. Until quite close to the spot, they were forced, by the thickness of the forest, to remain in ignorance of what had happened, and whether their comrade was dead or alive. But they shouted, and an answering "Halloa!" at last came back. As they turned into the glade where the sentinel had been posted, they beheld him advancing towards them and dragging another man along the ground by the hair of the head.
He flung the body down. It was an Indian, stone-dead, with a musket-wound in his side.
"How did it happen?" panted the colonel, beside himself with joy.
"Well," said the soldier, saluting, "I gave your honor notice that I should fire if I heard the least noise. That's what I did, and it saved my life; and it just happened in this way.
"I hadn't been long standing here, peering round till my eyes ached, when I heard a rustling about fifty yards away. I looked and saw an American hog, of the sort that are common enough in these parts, coming down the glade opposite, crawling along the ground and sniffing to right and left—just as if he'd no business in life but to sniff about for nuts under the fallen leaves and all about the roots of the trees. Boars are common enough, so I gave him a glance and didn't take much notice for some minutes.
"But after a while, thinks I to myself—'No doubt the others kept their eyes about them sharp enough, and was only took in by neglecting something that seemed of no account;' so being on the alarm and having no idea what was to be feared and what was not, I woke up after some minutes and determined to keep my eyes on it and watch how it passed in and out among the trees. For I thought, if it comes on an Indian skulking about yonder, I may be able to learn something from its movements. Indians are thick enough here and to spare: but they're not so thick as nuts, for all that.
"So I kept glancing at the hog, and then looking round and glancing again. Not another creature was in sight; not a leaf rustling. And then, all of a sudden—I can't tell why—it struck me as queer that the animal was snuffling around among the trees and making off to the right, seemingly for the thick coppice just behind my post. I didn't want anything behind me, you may be sure, not even a hog, and as it was now only a few yards from my coppice I kept my eye more constantly on it, and cast up in my mind whether I should fire or not.
"It seemed foolish enough to rouse you all up by shooting a pig! I fingered my trigger, and couldn't for the life of me make up my mind what to do. I looked and looked, and the more I looked the bigger fool I thought myself for being alarmed at it. It would be a rare jest against me that I mistook a pig for an Indian; and this was a hog sure enough. You've all seen scores of them, and know how they move. Well, this one was for all the world like any other, and I was almost saying to myself that'twas more like the average hog than any hog I'd ever seen, when just as it got close to the thicket I fancied it gave an unusual spring.
"At any rate, fancy or no, I didn't hesitate. I took cool aim, and directly I did so, felt sure I was right. The beast stopped in a hesitating sort of way, and by that I knew it saw what I was about, though up to the moment it had never seemed to be noticing me. 'An Indian's trick, for a sovereign,' thought I, and pulled the trigger.
"It dropped over like a stone; and then, as I stood there, still doubting if it were a trap that I should fall into by running to look, I heard a groan—and the groan of a man, too. I loaded my musket and ran up to it. I had shot an Indian, sure enough, and that groan was his last.