to take the one on the left, I covered another
which stood half facing me. At the roar of my rifle the ravine was
filled with wild squeals, and the pig rolled down the hill bringing
up against a tree. The boar rushed from behind the rock, and I fired
quickly as he stood broadside on. He plunged out of sight, and the
gorge was still!

Smith had missed his pig and was very much disgusted. The three
Chinese threw themselves down the slope, slipping and rolling over
logs and stones, and were up the opposite hill before we reached the
bottom of the ravine. They found the pig which I had killed and a
blood-splashed trail leading around the hill where the boar had
disappeared.

My pig was a splendid male in the rich red-brown coat of
adolescence. The bullet had struck him "amidships" and shattered the
hip on the opposite side. From the blood on the trail we decided
that I had shot the big boar through the center of the body about
ten inches behind the forelegs.

We had learned by experience how much killing a full-grown pig
required, and had no illusions about finding him dead a few yards
away, even though both sides of his path were blotched with red at
every step. Therefore, while the Chinese followed the trail, Smith
and I sprinted across the next ridge into a thickly forested ravine
to head off the boar.

We took stations several yards apart, and suddenly I heard Smith's
rifle bang six times in quick succession. The Chinese had disturbed
the pig from a patch of cover and it had climbed the opposite hill
slope in full view of Smith, who apparently had missed it every
time. Missing a boar dodging about among the bushes is not such a
difficult thing to do, and although poor Smith was too disgusted
even to talk about it, I had a good deal of sympathy for him.

We had little hope of getting the animal when we climbed to the
summit of the ridge and saw the tangle of brush into which it had
disappeared, but nevertheless we followed the trail which was still
showing blood. I was in front and was just letting myself down a
snow-covered bowlder, when far below me I saw a huge sow and a young
pig walking slowly through the trees. I turned quickly, lost my
balance, and slipped feet first over the rock into a mass of thorns
and scrub. A locomotive could not have made more noise, and I
extricated myself just in time to see the two pigs disappear into a
grove of pines. I was bleeding from a dozen scratches, but I climbed
to the s