224 MODERN PIG-STICKING 



If you only inflicted a flesh wound with a poor spear 

 you would have to look for bad trouble. I make 

 no doubt whatever that a bold pig-sticker would 

 take you right up to a tiger. I have shot a con- 

 siderable number and I fully realize their power, 

 but I am convinced the thing can be done. The 

 prize would be well worth the considerable risk. 



If you pig-stick much you are certain to meet 

 these pests, panther, sooner or later. Big game 

 shot though I am I use the term advisedly, for 

 there is no limit to the damage which these brutes 

 do to pig ; not to the big boar, but to the sows and 

 squeakers, which is far worse. In order to ex- 

 terminate them from a pig preserve there are no 

 measures from which I would shrink, excepting 

 poison, which I look on as fair for neither fish, flesh, 

 nor fowl. 



My experience with panther has not been as 

 large as I could have wished. This is partly due to 

 a certain contract I was unwise enough to make 

 with my mother. I have, however, speared three. 

 Of one, who to a certain extent defeated me, I have 

 written elsewhere. The first I ever speared gave 

 me no trouble at all. He ran along bounding as 

 usual. The feature with all big cats is the way they 

 seem to arch their backs when in a hurry, especially 

 over rough ground, and carry their long tails straight 

 perpendicular in the air. The chief thing I could 

 see of my friend was his tail above the grass. I 

 remember I was using my spear overhand that day. 

 Down went the panther's tail, and I knew he had 

 squatted. We were on him within a fraction of a 

 second ; my horse, Jansen, went well into him, 

 and I got him exactly right and underneath me. 

 The spear broke his back and he never moved again. 



