A BOAR-HUNT IN THE SIERRA. 31 



but not breaking covert, no shot could be fired, and when 

 he at last appeared in view, he was trotting up the stony 

 slopes on the extreme left. Here a rifle-shot at long range 

 broke a fore-leg below the shoulder. This was the turning 

 point : the wounded boar, no longer able to face the hill, 

 wheeled and retreated to the thickets below, scattering the 

 dogs and passing through the beaters at marvellous speed, 

 considering his disabled condition. And now commenced 

 the hue and cry and the real hard work for those who 

 meant to see the end and earn the spoils of war. Soon 

 "Moro's" deep voice told he had the tusker at bay, down 

 in the defile, far below. What followed in that hurly- 

 burly — that mad scramble through brake and thicket, 

 down crag and scree — is impossible to tell. Each man 

 only knows what he did himself — or did not do. We can 

 answer for three ; one of these seated himself on a rock 

 and lit a cigarette ; the others, ten minutes later, arrived 

 on the final scene — one minus his nether garments and 

 sundry patches of skin, but in time to take part in the 

 death of as grand a boar as ever roamed the Spanish 

 sierras. 



First to arrive was Gaspar himself, familiar with every 

 by-way and goat-track on the hills, and nervous for the 

 safety of his . hound ; but only a few seconds before the 

 denuded Ingles. In a pool of the rock-strewn brook, the 

 beast stood at bay, "Moro's" teeth clenched in one ear 

 and two podencos attacking in flank and rear. Gaspar 

 elected to finish the business with the knife, fixed bayonet- 

 wise, but the horn haft slipped from the muzzle, and 

 a moment later two simultaneous bullets had closed the 

 affair. 



One by one the scattered guns turned up : some, who 

 had taken a circuitous course, arriving before others whose 

 ardour had led them to follow direct — so dense was the 

 brushwood and rugged the sierra. A picturesque group 

 stood assembled around the blood-dyed pool with its 

 wild environment and bold mountain background; but 

 rejoicings were tempered by the loss of two of our 

 podencos, one having been killed outright, the other 



