outs of Cudjo, as he stood upon the
lowermost branches, and plied his terrible weapon. And thus for some
minutes raged the battle, until I could see the ground fairly strewed
with black and bleeding forms. Only a few of the peccaries remained
upon their feet; and these at length, becoming alarmed by the fearful
slaughter of their companions, turned away from the tree, and fled into
the thick underwood. It was plain that they were defeated, and would
not again molest us; and, feeling confident of this, we all descended
from our trees, and made our way to the house as quickly as we could--so
as to relieve the anxiety of my wife.

"Although we often afterwards met a few of the peccaries in our hunting
excursions--and had the fortune to capture some of their young--they
never from that time offered to attack us, but always endeavoured to
escape. It is the nature of this animal to fight bravely with an enemy
until conquered, when it will in future always run at his approach. In
fact, there appeared to be but one herd of them in the valley; and as
that had been nearly destroyed, we found them afterwards both scarce and
shy.

"Next day we returned, well armed, for our opossum and her young, which
in our hurry we had quite forgotten. We found, to our mortification,
that the cunning animal had gnawed off her fastenings, and escaped, with
her whole brood."

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

AN ADVENTURE WITH DUSKY WOLVES.

"During that year we raised two crops of corn. Neither one of them
required as much as two months to bring it to maturity. When we
gathered our fall crop we found that we had twenty times the full of our
cart--enough to serve us for a whole year, as well as to feed our
animals in the winter.

"Our second year was spent pretty much as the first. We made our sugar
in the spring, and planted a large quantity of corn. We added to our
stock of pets both deer and antelope; and among other animals we caught
an old she-wolf, with a large brood of wolf-puppies at her heels. I
need hardly tell you that we were constrained to kill the old one on
account of her savage disposition, but the young ones we kept and
reared. They grew up quite as tame as our own dogs, with whom they
fraternised as if they had been of the same species.

"During the summer and winter we had several adventures in the trapping
and killing of wild animals; but one of these adventures was of such a
singular and dangerous character, that you