A PECCARY HUNT ON THE NUECES. 147 



drink at the pools ; but when some distance 

 from water they seem to live quite comfort- 

 ably on the prickly pear, slaking their thirst 

 by eating its hard, juicy fibre. 



At last, after several false alarms, and gal- 

 lops which led to nothing, when it lacked but 

 an hour of sundown we struck a band of five 

 of the little wild hogs. They were running off 

 through the mesquites with a peculiar hopping 

 or bounding motion, and we all, dogs and men, 

 tore after them instantly. 



Peccaries are very fast for a few hundred 

 yards, but speedily tire, lose their wind, and 

 come to bay. Almost i mmediately one of these, 

 a sow, as it turned out, wheeled and charged at 

 Moore as he passed. Moore never seeing her 

 but keeping on after another. The sow then 

 stopped and stood still, chattering her teeth 

 savagely, and I jumped off my horse and 

 dropped her dead with a shot in the spine, 

 over the shoulders. Moore meanwhile had 

 dashed off after his pig in one direction, and 

 killed the little beast with a shot from the sad- 

 dle when it had come to bay, turning and going 

 straight at him. Two of the peccaries got off ; 

 the remaining one, a rather large boar, was fol- 

 lowed by the two dogs, and as soon as I had 

 killed the sow I leaped again on my horse and 

 made after them,guided by the yelping and bay- 

 ing. In less than a quarter of a mile they were 

 on his haunches, and he wheeled and stood un- 

 der a bush, charging at them when they came 

 near him, and once catching one, inflicting an 

 ugly cut. All the while his teeth kept going 



