132 SPOR TING AD VENTURES 



the merits of wild pigs, and as a type of the Westerner's 

 descriptive power is one of the best I ever heard or read. The 

 speaker was one of those old farmers who lived some time in 

 the wilderness, and he commenced his story in the following 1 

 quaint manner: "One day while passing 1 along the bottoms 

 I seen such a sight of hogs as I never did see. Thar they 

 stood, and squirmed, with their bristles up, and steam a risin' 

 out o' their bodies, and their eyes a flashing and teeth a 

 champin' ; a mass of bilin' mad hogs, who was a scream in' and 

 a shakin' 'emselves with rage. 



" What was a causin' of all this commotion I was not long 

 in seein'. Thar, in the middle of the great convention of hogs, 

 stood a big oak stump, about five feet high, and in the centre 

 of the stump stood a big gray wolf, as gaunt, hungry-lookin' 

 a critter as ever I seed. 



" He was handsomely treed, and wasn't in a very pleasant 

 fix, as he was beginnin' to find out. All about him was a 

 mass of oneasy hair, fiery eyes, frothin' mouths, gleamin' 

 teeth. Poor critter ! thar he stood his tail tucked close 

 between his legs and his feet all gathered into the exact centre 

 of the stump and Jerusalem! wasn't he a sick-lookin' wolf? 

 lie seemed to be thinkin' that he had sold himself awful cheap. 



" Right close about the stump and rairin' up against it was 

 a crowd of some of the biggest and most onprincipled old sows 

 I ever sot eyes onto. Every half minit one of these big old 

 she fellows would rair up, git her fore feet on top of the stump, 

 and make a savage snap at one end or t'other of the wolf, her 

 jaws comin' together like a flax brake. 



" The wolf would whirl round to watch that partickerler 

 sow, when one on t'other side of the stump would make a 

 plunge for his tail, an' so they kept the poor, cowardly, cornered 

 critter whirlin' round and round, humpin' up his back, haulin' 

 in his feet and tail, and in every possible way redncin' his 

 general average. I'll bet his entire innards was d rawed up 

 into a bunch not bigger'n my fist ! 



"Almost every instant thar was a charge made on him from 

 some quarter, an' sometimes from three or four directions at 

 once. Jewhittaker, wasn't it Imrrvin' times with him then ! 



