HOG-PENS. 187 



time in thrusting their snouts against the pen to seek 

 an entrance. At last one pushes against the door ; it 

 yields, and in goes one pig, who begins leisurely to 

 gobble up the corn. This sight makes the others 

 frantic, and they strike and push against the place till 

 each in turn finds the door and gains admittance. 



As soon as all the corn is devoured, the door which 

 yielded so easily is again tried. This time it resists all 

 their force ; and then, for the first time, it gradually 

 dawns upon their minds that they are trapped. Grreat 

 is the consternation, and loud the complaints ; but all 

 are useless, and the discomfited beasts have to make 

 the best of a bad bargain. The trapper, when he visits 

 the pen on the following morning, finds that he has 

 made a haul, and goes back to the plantation for assist- 

 ance. A cart is brought, and two or three negroes give 

 their aid. The old boars and useless sows are shot 

 where they stand in the pen ; the young porkers, after 

 being subjected to some painful but necessary opera- 

 tions, are carted away, and soon forget, amongst a plen- 

 tiful supply of corn and pumpkins, their old days of 

 freedom. 



An old hunter, towards the close of 1848, was 

 bitten with the California gold-fever, and determined 

 to start across the plains to El Paso, from thence to 

 push his way to the ' diggins ;' but before he went he 

 sold his cattle and land, and as he had two or three 

 hundred head of half-wild hogs ranging round the 



