1 1 8 WOLF-H UNTING. 



too, saw the danger ; and descending the steep ravine with the 

 impetus of a kangaroo, reached the water's edge in time to stop 

 another charge. His ballc-mariee then, at the distance of only 

 ten yards, put an end to the fight, passing through both shoulders, 

 of the beast, and rolling him dead into the hounds' jaws. 



At that very moment St. Prix was on the spot, his couteaic 

 bared, and he in the very act of springing into the thick of the 

 fray ; he paused, however, on the brink of the stream, as the 

 report of the smooth-bore rung on his ear ; and it might have 

 been fancy, but I could not help thinking a shade of disappoint- 

 ment passed over the fine fellow's face, as the adventurous work 

 of closing with the boar and delivering the hounds from their 

 instant danger was suddenly snatched from his hand. If it were 

 so, the cloud vanished without breaking ; and he turned round to- 

 thank Keryfan heartily for the ready help he had given the 

 hounds. The pig was a tusker, and pronounced to be three or 

 four years old : his lower tushes, calculating that portion of them 

 imbedded in the jaw, were about six inches long, not much 

 curved, but sharp and pointed as a barking knife; a pair of 

 terrible weapons in a close fight. The peasants point out the 

 stumps of oak trees on which they whet their tushes by way of 

 keeping their armour in order ; and as many of the trees near the 

 water's edge were scored and seamed deeply all round their boles, 

 they afforded pretty good proof that the boar of Kcenig were not 

 only a numerous, but a very warlike race. 



Louis Trefarreg, St. Prix's first piqueur, was so thoroughly 

 versed in all the habits and slot-signs of the beasts he hunted, 

 that he could approximately tell the size and age of a wolf or boar, 

 not only from their track-marks in the ground, but he could gauge 

 the height of the latter by the altitude at which he had scored the 

 trees in whetting his tusks ; every inch in the length of the boar's 

 legs enabling him to strike higher or lower according to their length. 



