was hunting out there for a deer, or a elk, or
a bear, when suddenly I come acrost the queerest kind of an animal. It
looked more like a hog than anything else, yet it wasn't a hog, for it
was thinner'n a cat. It had long white tusks, longer'n your hand, that
curled up from its mouth, little eyes that flashed fire, and great long
bristles on his back, that stood straight up. I shot at it and missed
it, and then it run straight at me. I made for the fence as hard as I
could, but it outrun me and was gaining on me every jump. Just as I clim
the fence it a-most ketched me, and made a nip not six inches from my
leg. I could hear him gnash them awful tusks o' his'n."

"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.

Thither had been gathered 35,000 of the Army of the Tennessee, who had
"Fort Donelson," "Shiloh," "Corinth," "Chickasaw Bayou," "Big Black,"
"Jackson," and "Vicksburg" in letters of gol